FLYI 
FRANCE 


JAMES  R.MSCONNELL 


WHMnKMi 


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FLYING  FOR  FRANCE 


JAMES  R.  McCONNELL 

"  I  frankly  confess  to  a  feeling  of  marked  satisfaction  at  re- 
ceiving that  grade  [Sergeant]  in  the  world's  finest  army" 

(See  page  45) 


FLYING  FOR  FRANCE 

With  the  American  Escadrille 
at  Verdun 


BY 
JAMES  R.  McCONNELL 

Sergeant-Pilot  in  the  French  Flying  Corps 


Illustrated  front  Photographs 

through  the  kindness  of  Mr.  Paul 

Rockwell 


Garden  City  New  York 

DOUBLEDAY,  PAGE  &  COMPANY 

1917 


Copyright,  1916,  1917,  by 
DOUBLEDAY,  PAGE  &  COMPANY 

All  rights  reserved,  including  that  of 

translation  into  foreign  languages, 

including  the  Scandinavian 


To 
MRS.  ALICE  S.  WEEKS 

Who  having  lost  a  splendid  son  in  the 
French  Army  has  given  to  a  great  number  of 
us  other  Americans  in  the  war  the  tender 
sympathy  and  help  of  a  mother. 


O 


CONTENTS 

PAGE 

Introduction xi 

By  F.  C.  P. 

CHAPTER 

I.    Verdun 3 

II.     From  Verdun  to  the  Somme      74 

III.  Personal  Letters  from  Ser- 

geant McConnell  ...     120 

IV.  How  France  Trains  Pilot 

Aviators 140 


LIST  OF  ILLUSTRATIONS 

James  R.  McConnell     .      .     Frontispiece 

FACING    PAGE 

Some  of  the  Americans  Who  are 
Flying  for  France       ....        18 

Two  Members  of  the  American  Es- 
cadrille,  of  the  French  Flying 
Service,  Who  Were  Killed  Flying 
For  France 50 

"  Whiskey."  The  Lion  and  Mascot 
of  the  American  Flying  Squadron 
in  France 82 

Kiffin  Rockwell,  of  Asheville,  N.  C, 
Who  Was  Killed  in  an  Air  Duel 
Over  Verdun         98 

Sergeant  Lufbery  in  one  of  the  New 
Nieuports  in  Which  He  Convoyed 
the  Bombardment  Fleet  Which 
Attacked  Oberndorf   .      .      .      .      114 


INTRODUCTION 

One  day  in  January,  1915,  I  saw 
Jim  McConnell  in  front  of  the  Court 
House  at  Carthage,  North  Carolina. 
"Well,"  he  said,  "I'm  all  fixed  up  and 
am  leaving  on  Wednesday."  "  Where 
for?"  I  asked.  "I've  got  a  job  to 
drive  an  ambulance  in  France, "  was 
his  answer. 

And  then  he  went  on  to  tell  me, 
first,  that  as  he  saw  it  the  greatest 
event  in  history  was  going  on  right  at 
hand  and  that  he  would  be  missing 
the  opportunity  of  a  lifetime  if  he 
did  not  see  it.  "These  Sand  Hills," 
he  said  "will  be  here  forever,  but  the 
war  won't;  and  so  I'm  going."  Then, 
as  an  afterthought,  he  added:    "And 

xi 


INTRODUCTION 


I'll  be  of  some  use,  too,  not  just  a  sight- 
seer looking  on;  that  wouldn't  be  fair." 

So  he  went.  He  joined  the  Ameri- 
can ambulance  service  in  the  Vosges, 
was  mentioned  more  than  once  in  the 
orders  of  the  day  for  conspicuous  brav- 
ery in  saving  wounded  under  fire,  and 
received  the  much-coveted  Croix  de 
Guerre. 

Meanwhile,  he  wrote  interesting 
letters  home.  And  his  point  of  view 
changed,  even  as  does  the  point  of 
view  of  all  Americans  who  visit  Eu- 
rope. From  the  attitude  of  an  ad- 
venturous spirit  anxious  to  see  the 
excitement,  his  letters  showed  a  new 
belief  that  any  one  who  goes  to  France 
and  is  not  able  and  willing  to  do  more 
than  his  share — to  give  everything  in 
him  toward  helping  the  wounded  and 
suffering — has  no  business  there. 

xii 


INTRODUCTION 


And  as  time  went  on,  still  a  new 
note  crept  into  his  letters;  the  first 
admiration  for  France  was  strength- 
ened and  almost  replaced  by  a  new 
feeling— a  profound  conviction  that 
France  and  the  French  people  were 
fighting  the  fight  of  liberty  against 
enormous  odds.  The  new  spirit  of 
France — the  spirit  of  the  "Marseil- 
laise," strengthened  by  a  grim  deter- 
mination and  absolute  certainty  of 
being  right — pervades  every  line  he 
writes.  So  he  gave  up  the  ambulance 
service  and  enlisted  in  the  French 
flying  corps  along  with  an  ever- 
increasing  number  of  other  Americans. 

The  spirit  which  pervades  them 
is  something  above  the  spirit  of  ad- 
venture that  draws  many  to  war;  it  is 
the  spirit  of  a  man  who  has  found 
an  inspiring  duty  toward  the  advance- 
xiii 


INTRODUCTION 


ment  of  liberty  and  humanity  and  is 
glad  and  proud  to  contribute  what  he 
can. 

His  last  letters  bring  out  a  new 
point — the  assurance  of  victory  of  a 
just  cause.  "Of  late,"  he  writes, 
"things  are  much  brighter  and  one 
can  feel  a  certain  elation  in  the  air. 
Victory,  before,  was  a  sort  of  aca- 
demic certainty;  now,  it  is  felt.'* 

F.  C.  P. 

November  10,  1916. 


3QV 


FLYING  FOR  FRANCE 


FLYING  FOR  FRANCE 
CHAPTER  I 

VERDUN 

Beneath  the  canvas  of  a  huge  hangar 
mechanicians  are  at  work  on  the  motor 
of  an  airplane.  Outside,  on  the  bor- 
ders of  an  aviation  field,  others  loiter 
awaiting  their  aerial  charge's  return 
from  the  sky.  Near  the  hangar  stands 
a  hut-shaped  tent.  In  front  of  it 
several  short-winged  biplanes  are  lined 
up ;  inside  it  three  or  four  young  men 
are  lolling  in  wicker  chairs. 

They  wear  the  uniform  of  French 
army  aviators.    These  uniforms,  and 
the     grim-looking     machine     guns 
3 


FLYING    FOR    FRANCE 

mounted  on  the  upper  planes  of  the 
little  aircraft,  are  the  only  warlike 
note  in  a  pleasantly  peaceful  scene. 
The  war  seems  very  remote.  It  is 
hard  to  believe  that  the  greatest  of  all 
battles — Verdun — rages  only  twenty- 
five  miles  to  the  north,  and  that  the 
field  and  hangars  and  mechanicians 
and  aviators  and  airplanes  are  all 
playing  a  part  therein. 

Suddenly  there  is  the  distant  hum 
of  a  motor.  One  of  the  pilots  emerges 
from  the  tent  and  gazes  fixedly  up  into 
the  blue  sky.  He  points,  and  one 
glimpses  a  black  speck  against  the  blue, 
high  overhead.  The  sound  of  the 
motor  ceases,  and  the  speck  grows 
larger.  It  moves  earthward  in  steep 
dives  and  circles,  and  as  it  swoops 
closer,  takes  on  the  shape  of  an  airplane. 
Now  one  can  make  out  the  red,  white, 
4 


FLYING    FOR    FRANCE 

and  blue  circles  under  the  wings  which 
mark  a  French  war-plane,  and  the  dis- 
tinctive insignia  of  the  pilot  on  its  sides. 

"  Ton  patron  arrive  /"  one  mechani- 
cian cries  to  another.  "Your  boss  is 
coming!" 

The  machine  dips  sharply  over  the 
top  of  a  hangar,  straightens  out  again 
near  the  earth  at  a  dizzy  speed  a  few 
feet  above  it  and,  losing  momentum 
in  a  surprisingly  short  time,  hits  the 
ground  with  tail  and  wheels.  It 
bumps  along  a  score  of  yards  and 
then,  its  motor  whirring  again,  turns, 
rolls  toward  the  hangar,  and  stops.  A 
human  form,  enveloped  in  a  species  of 
garment  for  all  the  world  like  a  diver's 
suit,  and  further  adorned  with  goggles 
and  a  leather  hood,  rises  unsteadily  in 
the  cockpit,  clambers  awkwardly  over- 
board and  slides  down  to  terra  firma. 
5 


FLYING     FOR     FRANCE 

A  group  of  soldiers,  enjoying  a  brief 
holiday  from  the  trenches  in  a  canton- 
ment near  the  field,  straggle  forward 
and  gather  timidly  about  the  airplane, 
listening  open-mouthed  for  what  its 
rider  is  about  to  say. 

"Hell!"  mumbles  that  gentleman, 
as  he  starts  divesting  himself  of  his 
flying  garb. 

"What's  wrong  now?"  inquires  one 
of  the  tenants  of  the  tent. 

"Everything,  or  else  I've  gone 
nutty,"  is  the  indignant  reply,  de- 
livered while  disengaging  a  leg  from 
its  Teddy  Bear  trousering.  "Why, 
I  emptied  my  whole  roller  on  a 
Boche  this  morning, .'.  point  blank  at 
not  fifteen  metres  off.  His  machine 
gun  quit  firing  and  his  propeller 
wasn't  turning  and  yet  the  darn  fool 
just  hung  up  there  as  if  he  were  tied 
6 


FLYING      FOR      FRANCE 

to  a  cloud.  Say,  I  was  so  sure  I  had 
him  it  made  me  sore — felt  like  running 
into  him  and  yelling,  'Now,  you  fall, 
you  bum!'" 

The  eyes  of  the  poilus  register  sur^ 
prise.  Not  a  word  of  this  dialogue, 
delivered  in  purest  American,  is  in- 
telligible to  them.  Why  is  an  aviator 
in  a  French  uniform  speaking  a  foreign 
tongue,  they  mutually  ask  them- 
selves. Finally  one  of  them,  a  little 
chap  in  a  uniform  long  since  bleached 
of  its  horizon-blue  colour  by  the  mud 
of  the  firing  line,  whisperingly  inter- 
rogates a  mechanician  as  to  the  iden- 
tity of  these  strange  air  folk. 

"But  they  are  the  Americans,  my 
old  one,"  the  latter  explains  with 
noticeable  condescension. 

Marvelling  afresh,  the  infantrymen 
demand  further  details.  They  learn 
7 


FLYING      FOR      FRANCE 

that  they  are  witnessing  the  return  of 
the  American  Escadrille — composed 
of  Americans  who  have  volunteered 
to  fly  for  France  for  the  duration  of 
the  war — to  their  station  near  Bar-le- 
Due,  twenty-five  miles  south  of  Ver- 
dun, from  a  flight  over  the  battle 
front  of  the  Meuse.  They  have  barely 
had  time  to  digest  this  knowledge 
when  other  dots  appear  in  the  sky, 
and  one  by  one  turn  into  airplanes 
as  they  wheel  downward.  Finally  all 
six  of  the  machines  that  have  been 
aloft  are  back  on  the  ground  and  the 
American  Escadrille  has  one  more 
sortie  over  the  German  lines  to  its 
credit. 

PERSONNEL    OF    THE    ESCADRILLE 

Like   all  worth-while   institutions, 
the  American  Escadrille,  of  which  I 
8 


FLYING      FOR      FRANCE 

have  the  honour  of  being  a  member, 
was  of  gradual  growth.  When  the 
war  began,  it  is  doubtful  whether 
anybody  anywhere  envisaged  the  pos- 
sibility of  an  American  entering  the 
French  aviation  service.  Yet,  by  the 
fall  of  1915,  scarcely  more  than  a 
year  later,  there  were  six  Americans 
serving  as  full-fledged  pilots,  and  now, 
in  the  summer  of  1916,  the  list  num- 
bers fifteen  or  more,  with  twice  that 
number  training  for  their  pilot's  li- 
cense in  the  military  aviation  schools. 
The  pioneer  of  them  all  was  William 
Thaw,  of  Pittsburg,  who  is  to-day  the 
only  American  holding  a  commission 
in  the  French  flying  corps.  Lieu- 
tenant Thaw,  a  flyer  of  considerable 
reputation  in  America  before  the  war, 
had  enlisted  in  the  Foreign  Legion  in 
August,  1914.  With  considerable  dif- 
9 


FLYING     FOR      FRANCE 

ficulty  he  had  himself  transferred, 
in  the  early  part  of  1915,  into  avia- 
tion, and  the  autumn  of  that  year 
found  him  piloting  a  Caudron  bi- 
plane, and  doing  excellent  observa- 
tion work.  At  the  same  time,  Ser- 
geants Norman  Prince,  of  Boston, 
and  Elliot  Gowdin,  of  New  York — 
who  were  the  first  to  enter  the  avia- 
tion service  coming  directly  from  the 
United  States — were  at  the  front  on 
Voisin  planes  with  a  cannon  mounted 
in  the  bow. 

Sergeant  Bert  Hall,  who  signs  from 
the  Lone  Star  State  and  had  got  him- 
self shifted  from  the  Foreign  Legion  to 
aviation  soon  after  Thaw,  was  flying  a 
Nieuport  fighting  machine,  and,  a 
little  later,  instructing  less-advanced 
students  of  the  air  in  the  Avord  Train- 
ing School.  His  particular  chum  in  the 
10 


FLYING      FOR      FRANCE 

Foreign  Legion,  James  Bach,  who  also 
had  become  an  aviator,  had  the  distress- 
ing distinction  soon  after  he  reached 
the  front  of  becoming  the  first  Amer- 
ican to  fall  into  the  hands  of  the  enemy. 
Going  to  the  assistance  of  a  companion 
who  had  broken  down  in  landing  a  spy 
in  the  German  lines,  Bach  smashed  his 
machine  against  a  tree.  Both  he  and 
his  French  comrade  were  captured, 
and  Bach  was  twice  court-martialed 
by  the  Germans  on  suspicion  of  being 
an  American  franc-tireur — the  penalty 
for  which  is  death !  He  was  acquitted 
but  of  course  still  languishes  in  a 
prison  camp  "somewhere  in  Ger- 
many." The  sixth  of  the  original 
sextet  was  Adjutant  Didier  Masson, 
who  did  exhibition  flying  in  the  States 
until — Carranza  having  grown  am- 
bitious in  Mexico — he  turned  his 
11 


FLYING     FOR     FRANCE 

talents  to  spotting  los  Federates  for 
General  Obregon.  When  the  real 
war  broke  out,  Masson  answered  the 
call  of  his  French  blood  and  was  soon 
flying  and  fighting  for  the  land  of  his 
ancestors. 

Of  the  other  members  of  the  esca- 
drille  Sergeant  Givas  Lufbery,  Ameri- 
can citizen  and  soldier,  but  dweller  in 
the  world  at  large,  was  among  the 
earliest  to  wear  the  French  airman's 
wings.  Exhibition  work  with  a  French 
pilot  in  the  Far  East  prepared  him 
efficiently  for  the  task  of  patiently 
unloading  explosives  on  to  German 
military  centres  from  a  slow-moving 
Voisin  which  was  his  first  mount. 
Upon  the  heels  of  Lufbery  came  two 
more  graduates  of  the  Foreign  Legion 
— Kiffin  Rockwell,  of  Asheville,  N.  C., 
who  had  been  wounded  at  Carency; 
12 


FLYING      FOR     FRANCE 

Victor  Chapman,  of  New  York,  who 
after  recovering  from  his  wounds 
became  an  airplane  bomb-dropper 
and  so  caught  the  craving  to  become  a 
pilot.  At  about  this  time  one  Paul 
Pavelka,  whose  birthplace  was  Mad: 
son,  Conn.,  and  who  from  the  age  of 
fifteen  had  sailed  the  seven  seas, 
managed  to  slip  out  of  the  Foreign 
Legion  into  aviation  and  joined  the 
other  Americans  at  Pau. 

There  seems  to  be  a  fascination  to 
aviation,  particularly  when  it  is  cou- 
pled with  fighting.  Perhaps  it's  be- 
cause the  game  is  new,  but  more 
probably  because  as  a  rule  nobody 
knows  anything  about  it.  Whatever 
be  the  reason,  adventurous  young 
Americans  were  attracted  by  it  in 
rapidly  increasing  numbers.  Man^ 
of  them,  of  course,  never  got  fasci- 


FLYING      FOR      FRANCE 

nated  beyond  the  stage  of  talking 
about  joining.  Among  the  chaps 
serving  with  the  American  ambulance 
field  sections  a  good  many  imagina- 
tions were  stirred,  and  a  few  actually 
did  enlist,  when,  toward  the  end  of 
the  summer  of  1915,  the  Ministry  of 
War,  finding  that  the  original  Ameri- 
can pilots  had  made  good,  grew 
more  liberal  in  considering  applica- 
tions. 

Chouteau  Johnson,  of  New  York; 
Lawrence  Rumsey,  of  Buffalo ;  Dudley 
Hill,  of  Peekskill,  N.  Y.;  and  Clyde 
Balsley,  of  El  Paso;  one  after  another 
doffed  the  ambulance  driver's  khaki 
for  the  horizon-blue  of  the  French 
flying  corps.  All  of  them  had  seen 
plenty  of  action,  collecting  the 
wounded  under  fire,  but  they  were  all 
tired  of  being  non-combatant  spec- 
Id 


FLYING     FOR      FRANCE 

tators.  More  or  less  the  same  feeling 
actuated  me,  I  suppose.  I  had  come 
over  from  Carthage,  N.  C,  in  Jan- 
uary, 1915,  and  worked  with  an 
American  ambulance  section  in  the 
Bois-le-Pretre.  All  along  I  had  been 
convinced  that  the  United  States 
ought  to  aid  in  the  struggle  against 
Germany.  With  that  conviction,  it 
was  plainly  up  to  me  to  do  more  than 
drive  an  ambulance.  The  more  I 
saw  the  splendour  of  the  fight  the 
French  were  fighting,  the  more  I  felt 
like  an  embusque — what  the  British 
call  a  "shirker."  So  I  made  up  my 
mind  to  go  into  aviation. 

A  special  channel  had  been  created 
for  the  reception  of  applications  from 
Americans,  and  my  own  was  favour- 
ably replied  to  within  a  few  days. 
It  took  four  days  more  to  pass  through 
15 


FLYING     FOR     FRANCE 

all  the  various  departments,  sign 
one's  name  to  a  few  hundred  papers, 
and  undergo  the  physical  examina- 
tions. Then  I  was  sent  to  the  avia- 
tion depot  at  Dijon  and  fitted  out 
with  a  uniform  and  personal  equip- 
ment. The  next  stop  was  the  school 
at  Pau,  where  I  was  to  be  taught  to 
fly.  My  elation  at  arriving  there  was 
second  only  to  my  satisfaction  at 
being  a  French  soldier.  It  was  a  vast 
improvement,  I  thought,  in  the  Amer- 
ican Ambulance. 

Talk  about  forming  an  all- American 
flying  unit,  or  escadrille,  was  rife  while 
I  was  at  Pau.  What  with  the  pilots 
already  breveted,  and  the  eleves,  or 
pupils  in  the  training-schools,  there 
were  quite  enough  of  our  compatriots 
to  man  the  dozen  airplanes  in  one 
escadrille.  Every  day  somebody  "had 

m 


FLYING     FOR      FRANCE 

it  absolutely  straight"  that  we  were 
to  become  a  unit  at  the  front,  and 
every  other  day  the  report  turned  out 
to  be  untrue.  But  at  last,  in  the 
month  of  February,  our  dream  came 
true.  We  learned  that  a  captain 
had  actually  been  assigned  to  com- 
mand an  American  escadrille  and 
that  the  Americans  at  the  front  had 
been  recalled  and  placed  under  his 
orders.  Soon  afterward  we  eleves  got 
another  delightful  thrill. 

THREE  TYPES  OF  FRENCH  AIR  SERVICE 

Thaw,  Prince,  Cowdin,  and  the 
other  veterans  were  training  on  the 
Nieuport !  That  meant  the  American 
Escadrille  was  to  fly  the  Nieuport 
— the  best  type  of  avion  de  chasse — 
and  hence  would  be  a  fighting  unit. 
It  is  necessary  to  explain  parentheti- 
17 


FLYING     FOR     FRANCE 

cally  here  that  French  military  avia- 
tion, generally  speaking,  is  divided 
into  three  groups — the  avions  de  chasse 
or  airplanes  of  pursuit,  which  are 
used  to  hunt  down  enemy  aircraft 
or  to  fight  them  off;  avions  de  bom- 
bardement,  big,  unwieldy  monsters 
for  use  in  bombarding  raids;  and 
avions  de  reglage,  cumbersome  creat- 
ures designed  to  regulate  artillery 
fire,  take  photographs,  and  do  scout 
duty.  The  Nieuport  is  the  smallest, 
fastest-rising,  fastest-moving  biplane 
in  the  French  service.  It  can  travel 
110  miles  an  hour,  and  is  a  one-man 
apparatus  with  a  machine  gun  mounted 
on  its  roof  and  fired  by  the  pilot 
with  one  hand  while  with  the  other 
and  his  feet  he  operates  his  controls. 
The  French  call  their  Nieuport  pilots 
the  "aces"  of  the  air.  No  wonder 
18 


FLYING    FOR    FRANCE 

we  were  tickled  to  be  included  in 
that  august  brotherhood ! 

Before  the  American  Escadrille 
became  an  established  fact,  Thaw 
and  Cowdin,  who  had  mastered  the 
Nieuport,  managed  to  be  sent  to  the 
Verdun  front.  While  there  Cowdin 
was  credited  with  having  brought 
down  a  German  machine  and  was 
proposed  for  the  Medaille  Militaire, 
the  highest  decoration  that  can  be 
awarded  a  non-commissioned  officer 
or  private. 

After  completing  his  training,  re- 
ceiving his  military  pilot's  brevet,  and 
being  perfected  on  the  type  of  plane 
he  is  to  use  at  the  front,  an  aviator  is 
ordered  to  the  reserve  headquarters 
near  Paris  to  await  his  call.  Kiffin 
Rockwell  and  Victor  Chapman  had 

been  there  for  months,  and  I  had  just 
19 


FLYING      FOR      FRANCE 

arrived,  when  on  the  16th  of  April 
orders  came  for  the  Americans  to 
join  their  escadrille  at  Luxeuil,  in  the 
Vosges. 

The  rush  was  breathless!  Never 
were  flying  clothes  and  fur  coats 
drawn  from  the  quartermaster,  be- 
longings packed,  and  red  tape  in  the 
various  administrative  bureaux  un- 
furled, with  such  headlong  haste. 
In  a  few  hours  we  were  aboard  the 
train,  panting,  but  happy.  Our  party 
consisted  of  Sergeant  Prince,  and 
Rockwell,  Chapman,  and  myself,  who 
were  only  corporals  at  that  time. 
We  were  joined  at  Luxeuil  by  Lieu- 
tenant Thaw  and  Sergeants  Hall  and 
Gowdin. 

For  the  veterans  our  arrival  at  the 
front  was  devoid  of  excitement;  for 
the  three  neophytes — Rockwell,  Chap- 
20 


FLYING      FOR      FRANCE 

1 -  -  -  I  III,         .ljm- 

man,  and  myself — it  was  the  beginning 
of  a  new  existence,  the  entry  into 
an  unknown  world.  Of  course  Rock- 
well and  Chapman  had  seen  plenty 
of  warfare  on  the  ground,  but  war- 
fare in  the  air  was  as  novel  to  them 
as  to  me.  For  us  all  it  contained 
unlimited  possibilities  for  initiative 
and  service  to  France,  and  for  them 
it  must  have  meant,  too,  the  restora- 
tion of  personality  lost  during  those 
months  in  the  trenches  with  the 
Foreign  Legion.  Rockwell  summed 
it  up  characteristically. 

"Well,  we're  off  for  the  races,"  he 
remarked. 

PILOT   LIFE   AT   THE   FRONT 

There  is  a  considerable  change  in 
the  life  of  a  pilot  when  he  arrives  on 
the  front.     During  the  training  period 
21 


FLYING      FOR      FRANCE 


he  is  subject  to  rules  and  regulations 
as  stringent  as  those  of  the  barracks. 
But  once  assigned  to  duty  over  the 
firing  line  he  receives  the  treatment 
accorded  an  officer,  no  matter  what 
his  grade.  Save  when  he  is  flying 
or  on  guard,  his  time  is  his  own. 
There  are  no  roll  calls  or  other  military 
frills,  and  in  place  of  the  mink  he 
slept  upon  as  an  eleve,  he  finds  a 
regular  bed  in  a  room  to  himself, 
and  the  services  of  an  orderly.  Even 
men  of  higher  rank  who  although 
connected  with  his  escadrille  are  not 
pilots,  treat  him  with  respect.  His 
two  mechanicians  are  under  his  orders. 
Being  volunteers,  we  Americans  are 
shown  more  than  the  ordinary  con- 
sideration by  the  ever-generous  French 
Government,  which  sees  to  it  that  we 
have  the  best  of  everything. 
22 


FLYING      FOR      FRANCE 

On  our  arrival  at  Luxeuil  we  were 
met  by  Captain  Thenault,  the  French 
commander  of  the  American  Escadrille 
— officially  known  as  No.  124,  by 
the  way — and  motored  to  the  aviation 
field  in  one  of  the  staff  cars  assigned 
to  us.  I  enjoyed  that  ride.  Lolling 
back  against  the  soft  leather  cushions, 
I  recalled  how  in  my  apprenticeship 
days  at  Pau  I  had  had  to  walk  six 
miles  for  my  laundry. 

The  equipment  awaiting  us  at  the 
field  was  even  more  impressive  than 
our  automobile.  Everything  was 
brand  new,  from  the  fifteen  Fiat 
trucks  to  the  office,  magazine,  and 
rest  tents.  And  the  men  attached 
to  the  escadrille!  At  first  sight  they 
seemed  to  outnumber  the  Nicaraguan 
army — mechanicians,  chauffeurs,  ar- 
mourers, motorcyclists,  telephonists, 
23 


FLYING      FOR      FRANCE 

wireless  operators,  Red  Cross  stretcher 
bearers,  clerks!  Afterward  I  learned 
they  totalled  seventy-odd,  and  that 
all  of  them  were  glad  to  be  connected 
with  the  American  Escadrille. 

In  their  hangars  stood  our  trim 
little  Nieuports.  I  looked  mine  over 
with  a  new  feeling  of  importance  and 
gave  orders  to  my  mechanicians  for 
the  mere  satisfaction  of  being  able  to. 
To  find  oneself  the  sole  proprietor  of  a 
fighting  airplane  is  quite  a  treat, 
let  me  tell  you.  One  gets  accustomed 
to  it,  though,  after  one  has  used  up 
two  or  three  of  them — at  the  French 
Government's  expense. 

Rooms  were  assigned  to  us  in  a  villa 
adjoining  the  famous  hot  baths  of 
Luxeuil,  where  Caesar's  cohorts  were 
wont  to  besport  themselves.  We 
messed  with  our  officers,  Captain 
24 


FLYING      FOR     FRANCE 

Thenault  and  Lieutenant  de  Laage  de 
Mux,  at  the  best  hotel  in  town.  An 
automobile  was  always  on  hand  to 
carry  us  to  the  field.  I  began  to 
wonder  whether  I  was  a  summer 
resorter  instead  of  a  soldier. 

Among  the  pilots  who  had  wel- 
comed us  with  open  arms,  we  dis- 
covered the  famous  Captain  Happe, 
commander  of  the  Luxeuil  bombard- 
ment group.  The  doughty  bomb- 
dispenser,  upon  whose  head  the  Ger- 
mans have  set  a  price,  was  in  his 
quarters.  After  we  had  been  intro- 
duced, he  pointed  to  eight  little  boxes 
arranged  on  a  table. 

"They  contain  Croix  de  Guerre  for 
the  families  of  the  men  I  lost  on 
my  last  trip,"  he  explained,  and 
he  added:  "It's  a  good  thing  you're 
here  to  go  along  with  us  for  protec- 
25 


FLYING      FOR     FRANCE 

tion.  There  are  lots  of  Bodies  in  this 
sector." 

I  thought  of  the  luxury  we  were 
enjoying:  our  comfortable  beds,  baths, 
and  motor  cars,  and  then  I  recalled 
the  ancient  custom  of  giving  a  man 
selected  for  the  sacrifice  a  royal  time 
of  it  before  the  appointed  day. 

To  acquaint  us  with  the  few  places 
where  a  safe  landing  was  possible  we 
were  motored  through  the  Vosges 
Mountains  and  on  into  Alsace.  It 
was  a  delightful  opportunity  to  see 
that  glorious  countryside,  and  we 
appreciated  it  the  more  because  we 
knew  its  charm  would  be  lost  when 
we  surveyed  it  from  the  sky.  From 
the  air  the  ground  presents  no  scenic 
effects.  The  ravishing  beauty  of  the 
Val  d'Ajol,  the  steep  mountain  sides 
bristling  with  a  solid  mass  of  giant 
26 


FLYING     FOR      FRANCE 

^— ■ 

pines,  the  myriads  of  glittering  cas- 
cades tumbling  downward  through 
fairylike  avenues  of  verdure,  the  roar- 
ing, tossing  torrent  at  the  foot  of  the 
slope — all  this  loveliness,  seen  from 
an  airplane  at  12,000  feet,  fades  into 
flat  splotches  of  green  traced  with  a 
tiny  ribbon  of  silver. 

The  American  Escadrille  was  sent 
to  Luxeuil  primarily  to  acquire  the 
team  work  necessary  to  a  flying  unit. 
Then,  too,  the  new  pilots  needed  a 
taste  of  anti-aircraft  artillery  to  famil- 
iarize them  with  the  business  of  avia- 
tion over  a  battlefield.  They  shot  well 
in  that  sector,  too.  Thaw's  machine 
was  hit  at  an  altitude  of  13,000  feet. 

THE   ESCADRILLE' S   FIRST   SORTIE 

The  memory  of  the  first  sortie  we 
made  as  an  escadrille  will  always  re- 

27 


FLYING      FOR      FRANCE 

main  fresh  in  my  mind  because  it  was 
also  my  first  trip  over  the  lines.  We 
were  to  leave  at  six  in  the  morning. 
Captain  Thenault  pointed  out  on  his 
aerial  map  the  route  we  were  to  follow. 
Never  having  flown  over  this  region 
before,  I  was  afraid  of  losing  myself. 
Therefore,  as  it  is  easier  to  keep  other 
airplanes  in  sight  when  one  is  above 
them,  I  began  climbing  as  rapidly 
as  possible,  meaning  to  trail  along 
in  the  wake  of  my  companions.  Un- 
less one  has  had  practice  in  flying  in 
formation,  however,  it  is  hard  to 
keep  in  contact.  The  diminutive 
avions  de  chasse  are  the  merest  pin- 
points against  the  great  sweep  of 
landscape  below  and  the  limitless 
heavens  above.  The  air  was  misty 
and  clouds  were  gathering.  Ahead 
there  seemed  a  barrier  of  them.  Al- 
28 


FLYING     FOR     FRANCE 

though  as  I  looked  down  the  ground 
showed  plainly,  in  the  distance  every- 
thing was  hazy.  Forging  up  above 
the  mist,  at  7,000  feet,  I  lost  the 
others  altogether.  Even  when  they 
are  not  closely  joined,  the  clouds, 
seen  from  immediately  above,  appear 
as  a  solid  bank  of  white.  The  spaces 
between  are  indistinguishable.  It  is 
like  being  in  an  Arctic  ice  field. 

To  the  south  I  made  out  the  Alps. 
Their  glittering  peaks  projected  up 
through  the  white  sea  about  me  like 
majestic  icebergs.  Not  a  single  plane 
was  visible  anywhere,  and  I  was  grow- 
ing very  uncertain  about  my  position. 
My  splendid  isolation  had  become 
oppressive,  when,  one  by  one,  the 
others  began  bobbing  up  above  the 
cloud  level,  and  I  had  company  again. 

We  were  over  Belfort  and  headed 


FLYING     FOR     FRANCE 

for  the  trench  lines.  The  cloud  banks 
dropped  behind,  and  below  us  we 
saw  the  smiling  plain  of  Alsace  stretch- 
ing eastward  to  the  Rhine.  It  was 
distinctly  pleasurable,  flying  over  this 
conquered  land .  Following  the  course 
of  the  canal  that  runs  to  the  Rhine, 
I  sighted,  from  a  height  of  13,000 
feet  over  Dannemarie,  a  series  of 
brown,  woodworm-like  tracings  on 
the  ground — the  trenches! 

SHRAPNEL  THAT  COULDN'T  BE  HEARD 

My  attention  was  drawn  elsewhere 
almost  immediately,  however.  Two 
balls  of  black  smoke  had  suddenly 
appeared  close  to  one  of  the  machines 
ahead  of  me,  and  with  the  same  dis- 
concerting abruptness  similar  balls 
began  to  dot  the  sky  above,  below, 
and  on  all  sides  of  us.  We  were  being 
30 


FLYING     FOR     FRANCE 

shot  at  with  shrapnel.  It  was  in- 
teresting to  watch  the  flash  of  the 
bursting  shells,  and  the  attendant 
smoke  puffs — black,  white,  or  yellow, 
depending  on  the  kind  of  shrapnel 
used.  The  roar  of  the  motor  drowned 
the  noise  of  the  explosions.  Strangely 
enough,  my  feelings  about  it  were 
wholly  impersonal. 

We  turned  north  after  crossing  the 
lines.  Mulhouse  seemed  just  below 
us,  and  I  noted  with  a  keen  sense  of 
satisfaction  our  invasion  of  real  Ger- 
man territory.  The  Rhine,  too,  looked 
delightfully  accessible.  As  we  con- 
tinued northward  I  distinguished  the 
twin  lakes  of  Gerardmer  sparkling  in 
their  emerald  setting.  Where  the 
lines  crossed  the  Hartmannsweiler- 
kopf  there  were  little  spurts  of  brown 
smoke  as  shells  burst  in  the  trenches. 
31 


FLYING      FOR      FRANCE 

One  could  scarcely  pick  out  the  old 
zity  of  Thann  from  among  the  nu- 
merous neighbouring  villages,  so  tiny 
it  seemed  in  the  valley's  mouth.  I 
had  never  been  higher  than  7,000  feet 
and  was  unaccustomed  to  reading 
country  from  a  great  altitude.  It  was 
also  bitterly  cold,  and  even  in  my 
fur-lined  combination  I  was  shivering. 
I  noticed,  too,  that  I  had  to  take  long, 
deep  breaths  in  the  rarefied  atmos- 
phere. Looking  downward  at  a  cer- 
tain angle,  I  saw  what  at  first  I  took  to 
be  a  round,  shimmering  pool  of  water. 
It  was  simply  the  effect  of  the  sun- 
light on  the  congealing  mist.  We 
had  been  keeping  an  eye  out  for 
German  machines  since  leaving  our 
lines,  but  none  had  shown  up.  It 
wasn't  surprising,  for  we  were  too 
many. 

32 


FLYING     FOR      FRANCE 

Only  four  days  later,  however,  Rock- 
well brought  down  the  escadrille's 
first  plane  in  his  initial  aerial  combat. 
He  was  flying  alone  when,  over  Than^ 
he  came  upon  a  German  on  recon- 
naissance. He  dived  and  the  German 
turned  toward  his  own  lines,  opening 
fire  from  a  long  distance.  Rockwell 
kept  straight  after  him.  Then,  clos- 
ing to  within  thirty  yards,  he  pressed 
on  the  release  of  his  machine  gun, 
and  saw  the  enemy  gunner  fall  back- 
ward and  the  pilot  crumple  up  side- 
ways in  his  seat.  The  plane  flopped 
downward  and  crashed  to  earth  just 
behind  the  German  trenches.  Swoop- 
ing close  to  the  ground  Rockwell  saw 
its  debris  burning  away  brightly. 
He  had  turned  the  trick  with  but  four 
shots  and  only  one  German  bullet 
had   struck   his   Nieuport.    An   ob- 


FLYING      FOR      FRANCE 

servation  post  telephoned  the  news 
before  Rockwell's  return,  and  he  got  a 
great  welcome.  All  Luxeuil  smiled 
upon  him — particularly  the  girls.  But 
he  couldn't  stay  to  enjoy  his  popu- 
larity. The  escadrille  was  ordered  to 
the  sector  of  Verdun. 

While  in  a  way  we  were  sorry  to 
leave  Luxeuil,  we  naturally  didn't 
regret  the  chance  to  take  part  in  the 
aerial  activity  of  the  world's  greatest 
battle.  The  night  before  our  de- 
parture some  German  aircraft  de- 
stroyed four  of  our  tractors  and  killed 
six  men  with  bombs,  but  even  that 
caused  little  excitement  compared 
with  going  to  Verdun.  We  would  get 
square  with  the  Boches  over  Verdun, 
we  thought — it  is  impossible  to  chase 
airplanes  at  night,  so  the  raiders  made 
a  safe  getaway  , 

34 


FLYING    FOR    FRANCE 
OFF  TO   VERDUN 

As  soon  as  we  pilots  had  left  in  our 
machines,  the  trucks  and  tractors 
set  out  in  convoy,  carrying  the  men 
and  equipment.  The  Nieuports  car- 
ried us  to  our  new  post  in  a  little  more 
than  an  hour.  We  stowed  them  away 
in  the  hangars  and  went  to  have  a 
look  at  our  sleeping  quarters.  A 
commodious  villa  half  way  between 
the  town  of  Bar-le-Duc  and  the  avia- 
tion field  had  been  assigned  to  us,  and 
comforts  were  as  plentiful  as  at 
Luxeuil. 

Our  really  serious  work  had  begun, 
however,  and  we  knew  it.  Even  as 
far  behind  the  actual  fighting  as  Bar- 
le-Duc  one  could  sense  one's  prox- 
imity to  a  vast  military  operation. 
The  endless  convoys  of  motor  trucks, 
35 


FLYING      FOR     FRANCE 

the  fast-flowing  stream  of  troops,  and 
the  distressing  number  of  ambulances 
brought  realization  of  the  near  pres- 
ence of  a  gigantic  battle. 

Within  a  twenty-mile  radius  of  the 
Verdun  front  aviation  camps  abound. 
Our  escadrille  was  listed  on  the  sched- 
ule with  the  other  fighting  units,  each 
of  which  has  its  specified  flying  hours, 
rotating  so  there  is  always  an  escadrille 
de  chasse  over  the  lines.  A  field  wire- 
less to  enable  us  to  keep  track  of  the 
movements  of  enemy  planes  became 
part  of  our  equipment. 

Lufbery  joined  us  a  few  days  after 
our  arrival.  He  was  followed  by 
Johnson  and  Balsley,  who  had  been 
on  the  air  guard  over  Paris.  Hill  and 
Rumsey  came  next,  and  after  them 
Masson  and  Pavelka.  Nieuports  were 
supplied  them  from  the  nearest  depot, 
36 


FLYING     FOR     FRANCE 

and  as  soon  as  they  had  mounted 
their  instruments  and  machine  guns, 
they  were  on  the  job  with  the  rest 
of  us.  Fifteen  Americans  are  or 
have  been  members  of  the  American 
Escadrille,  but  there  have  never  been 
so  many  as  that  on  duty  at  any  one 
time. 

BATTLES    IN   THE   AIR 

Before  we  were  fairly  settled  at 
Bar-le-Duc,  Hall  brought  down  a 
German  observation  craft  and  Thaw  a 
Fokker.  Fights  occurred  on  almost 
every  sortie.  The  Germans  seldom 
cross  into  our  territory,  unless  on  a 
bombarding  jaunt,  and  thus  practi- 
cally all  the  fighting  takes  place  on 
their  side  of  the  line.  Thaw  dropped 
his  Fokker  in  the  morning,  and  on  the 
afternoon  of  the  same  day  there  was  a 
37 


FLYING      FOR     FRANCE 

big  combat  far  behind  the  German 
trenches.  Thaw  was  wounded  in  the 
arm,  and  an  explosive  bullet  detonat- 
ing on  Rockwell's  wind-shield  tore 
several  gashes  in  his  face.  Despite 
the  blood  which  was  blinding  him 
Rockwell  managed  to  reach  an  avia- 
tion field  and  land.  Thaw,  whose 
wound  bled  profusely,  landed  in  a 
dazed  condition  just  within  our  lines. 
He  was  too  weak  to  walk,  and  French 
soldiers  carried  him  to  a  field  dressing- 
station,  whence  he  was  sent  to  Paris 
for  further  treatment.  Rockwell's 
wounds  were  less  serious  and  he  in- 
sisted on  flying  again  almost  imme- 
diately. 

A  week  or  so  later  Chapman  was 
wounded.     Considering  the  number 
of  fights  he  had  been  in  and  the  cour- 
age with  which  he  attacked  it  was  a 
38 


FLYING      FOR     FRANCE 

miracle  he  had  not  been  hit  before. 
He  always  fought  against  odds  and  far 
within  the  enemy's  country.  He  flew 
more  than  any  of  us,  never  missing 
an  opportunity  to  go  up,  and  never 
coming  down  until  his  gasolene  was 
giving  out.  His  machine  was  a  sieve 
of  patched-up  bullet  holes.  His  nerve 
was  almost  superhuman  and  his  de- 
votion to  the  cause  for  which  he 
fought  sublime.  The  day  he  was 
wounded  he  attacked  four  machines. 
Swooping  down  from  behind,  one  of 
them,  a  Fokker,  riddled  Chapman's 
plane.  One  bullet  cut  deep  into  his 
scalp,  but  Chapman,  a  master  pilot, 
escaped  from  -  the  trap,  and  fired 
several  shots  to  show  he  was  still  safe. 
A  stability  control  had  been  severed 
by  a  bullet.  Chapman  held  the 
broken  rod  in  one  hand,  managed  his 
39 


FLYING      FOR      FRANCE 

machine  with  the  other,  and  suc- 
ceeded in  landing  on  a  near-by  avia- 
tion field.  His  wound  was  dressed, 
his  machine  repaired,  and  he  im- 
mediately took  the  air  in  pursuit  of 
some  more  enemies.  He  would  take 
no  rest,  and  with  bandaged  head 
continued  to  fly  and  fight. 

The  escadrille's  next  serious  en- 
counter with  the  foe  took  place  a 
few  days  later.  Rockwell,  Balsley, 
Prince,  and  Captain  Thenault  were 
surrounded  by  a  large  number  of 
Germans,  who,  circling  about  them, 
commenced  firing  at  long  range.  Re- 
alizing their  numerical  inferiority, 
the  Americans  and  their  commander 
sought  the  safest  way  out  by  attack- 
ing the  enemy  machines  nearest  the 
French  lines.  Rockwell,  Prince,  and 
the  captain  broke  through  success- 
40 


FLYING     FOR     FRANCE 

fully,  but  Balsley  found  himself 
hemmed  in.  He  attacked  the  Ger- 
man nearest  him,  only  to  receive  an 
explosive  bullet  in  his  thigh.  In  try- 
ing to  get  away  by  a  vertical  dive 
his  machine  went  into  a  corkscrew 
and  swung  over  on  its  back.  Extra 
cartridge  rollers  dislodged  from  their 
case  hit  his  arms.  He  was  tumbling 
straight  toward  the  trenches,  but  by 
a  supreme  effort  he  regained  control, 
righted  the  plane,  and  landed  without 
disaster  in  a  meadow  just  behind  the 
firing  line. 

Soldiers  carried  him  to  the  shelter 
of  a  near-by  fort,  and  later  he  was 
taken  to  a  field  hospital,  where  he 
lingered  for  days  between  life  and 
death.  Ten  fragments  of  the  ex- 
plosive bullet  were  removed  from  his 
stomach.  He  bore  up  bravely,  and 
41 


FLYING     FOR      FRANCE 

became  the  favourite  of  the  wounded 
officers  in  whose  ward  he  lay.  When 
we  flew  over  to  see  him  they  would 
say:  II  est  un  brave  petit  gars,  Uavi- 
ateur  americain.  [He's  a  brave  little 
fellow,  the  American  aviator.]  On 
a  shelf  by  his  bed,  done  up  in  a  hand- 
kerchief, he  kept  the  pieces  of  bullet 
taken  out  of  him,  and  under  them 
some  sheets  of  paper  on  which  he 
was  trying  to  write  to  his  mother, 
back  in  El  Paso. 

Balsley  was  awarded  the  Medaille 
Militaire  and  the  Croix  de  Guerre, 
but  the  honours  scared  him.  He  had 
seen  them  decorate  officers  in  the 
ward  before  they  died. 

chapman's  last  fight 

Then  came  Chapman's  last  fight. 
Before  leaving,  he  had  put  two  bags 

42 


FLYING     FOR     FRANCE 

of  oranges  in  his  machine  to  take  to 
Balsley,  who  liked  to  suck  them  to  re- 
lieve his  terrible  thirst,  after  the 
day's  flying  was  over.  There  was  an 
aerial  struggle  against  odds,  far  within 
the  German  lines,  and  Chapman,  to 
divert  their  fire  from  his  comrades, 
engaged  several  enemy  airmen  at 
once.  He  sent  one  tumbling  to 
earth,  and  had  forced  the  others  off 
when  two  more  swooped  down  upon 
him.  Such  a  fight  is  a  matter  of 
seconds,  and  one  cannot  clearly  see 
what  passes.  Lufbery  and  Prince, 
whom  Chapman  had  defended  so 
gallantly,  regained  the  French  lines. 
They  told  us  of  the  combat,  and  we 
waited  on  the  field  for  Chapman's  re- 
turn. He  was  always  the  last  in,  so 
we  were  not  much  worried.  Then  a 
pilot  from  another  fighting  escadrille 
43 


FLYING        FOR      FRANCE 

telephoned  us  that  he  had  seen  a 
Nieuport  falling.  A  little  later  the 
observer  of  a  reconnaissance  airplane 
called  up  and  told  us  how  he  had  wit- 
nessed Chapman's  fall.  The  wings  of 
the  plane  had  buckled,  and  it  had 
dropped  like  a  stone  he  said. 

We  talked  in  lowered  voices  after 
that;  we  could  read  the  pain  in  one 
another's  eyes.  If  only  it  could  have 
been  some  one  else,  was  what  we  all 
thought,  I  suppose.  To  lose  Victor 
was  not  an  irreparable  loss  to  us 
merely,  but  to  France,  and  to  the 
world  as  well.  I  kept  thinking  of 
him  lying  over  there,  and  of  the 
oranges  he  was  taking  to  Balsley. 
As  I  left  the  field  I  caught  sight  of 
Victor's  mechanician  leaning  against 
the    end    of    our    hangar.     He    was 

looking  northward  into  the  sky  where 
44 


FLYING        FOR        FRANCE 

his  patron  had  vanished,  and  his  face 
was  very  sad. 

PROMOTIONS  AND  DECORATIONS 

By  this  time  Prince  and  Hall  had 
been  made  adjutants,  and  we  cor- 
porals transformed  into  sergeants. 
I  frankly  confess  to  a  feeling  of  marked 
satisfaction  at  receiving  that  grade 
in  the  world's  finest  army.  I  was  a 
far  more  important  person,  in  my 
own  estimation,  than  I  had  been  as  a 
second  lieutenant  in  the  militia  at 
home.  The  next  impressive  event 
was  the  awarding  of  decorations. 
We  had  assisted  at  that  ceremony  for 
Cowdin  at  Luxeuil,  but  this  time  three 
of  our  messmates  were  to  be  honoured 
for  the  Germans  they  had  brought 
down.     Rockwell  and  Hall  received 

the  Medaille  Militaire  and  the  Croix 
45 


FLYING      FOR      FRANCE 

de  Guerre,  and  Thaw,  being  a  lieu- 
tenant, the  Legion  d'honneur  and 
another  "palm"  for  the  ribbon  of  the 
Croix  de  Guerre  he  had  won  previously. 
Thaw,  who  came  up  from  Paris  spe- 
ially  for  the  presentation,  still  carried 
his  arm  in  a  sling. 

There  were  also  decorations  for 
Chapman,  but  poor  Victor,  who  so 
often  had  been  cited  in  the  Orders  of  the 
Day,  was  not  on  hand  to  receive  them. 

THE   MORNING   SORTIE 

Our  daily  routine  goes  on  with  little 
change.  Whenever  the  weather  per- 
mits— that  is,  when  it  isn't  raining, 
and  the  clouds  aren't  too  low — we  fly 
over  the  Verdun  battlefield  at  the 
hours  dictated  by  General  Headquar- 
ters. As  a  rule  the  most  successful 
sorties  are  those  in  the  early  morning. 
46 


FLYING     FOR     FRANCE 

We  are  called  while  it's  still  dark. 
Sleepily  I  try  to  reconcile  the  French 
orderly's  muttered,  Cest  Uheure,  mon- 
sieur, that  rouses  me  from  slumber, 
with  the  strictly  American  words  and 
music  of  "When  That  Midnight  Choo 
Choo  Leaves  for  Alabam'"  warbled 
by  a  particularly  wide-awake  pilot 
in  the  next  room.  A  few  minutes 
later,  having  swallowed  some  coffee, 
we  motor  to  the  field.  The  east  is 
turning  gray  as  the  hangar  curtains 
are  drawn  apart  and  our  machines 
trundled  out  by  the  mechanicians. 
All  the  pilots  whose  planes  are  in 
commission — save  those  remaining  be- 
hind on  guard — prepare  to  leave. 
We  average  from  four  to  six  on  a 
sortie,  unless  too  many  flights  have 
been  ordered  for  that  day,  in  which 
case  only  two  or  three  go  out  at  a  time. 
47 


FLYING     FOR     FRANCE 

Now  the  east  is  pink,  and  overhead 
the  sky  has  changed  from  gray  to 
pale  blue.  It  is  light  enough  to  fly. 
We  don  our  fur-lined  shoes  and  com- 
binations, and  adjust  the  leather  fly- 
ing hoods  and  goggles.  A  good  deal 
of  conversation  occurs — perhaps  be- 
cause, once  aloft,  there's  nobody  to 
talk  to. 

"Eh,  you,"  one  pilot  cries  jokingly 
to  another,  "I  hope  some  Boche  just 
ruins  you  this  morning,  so  I  won't 
have  to  pay  you  the  fifty  francs  you 
won  from  me  last  night!" 

This  financial  reference  concerns  a 
poker  game. 

"You  do,  do  you?"  replies  the 
other  as  he  swings  into  his  machine. 
"Well,  I'd  be  glad  to  pass  up  the  fifty 
to  see  you  landed  by  the  Boches. 
You'd  make  a  fine  sight  walking  down 
48 


FLYING      FOR      FRANCE 

the  street  of  some  German  town  in 
those  wooden  shoes  and  pyjama 
pants.  Why  don't  you  dress  your- 
self? Don't  you  know  an  aviator's 
supposed  to  look  chic  ?" 

A  sartorial  eccentricity  on  the  part 
of  one  of  our  colleagues  is  here  re- 
ferred to. 

GETTING  UNDER  WAY 

The  raillery  is  silenced  by  a  deafen- 
ing roar  as  the  motors  are  tested. 
Quiet  is  briefly  restored,  only  to  be 
broken  by  a  series  of  rapid  explosions 
incidental  to  the  trying  out  of  machine 
guns.  You  loudly  inquire  at  what 
altitude  we  are  to  meet  above  the 
field. 

"Fifteen      hundred      metres — go 

ahead!"  comes  an  answering  yell. 

Essence  et  gaz!  [Oil  and  gas!]  you 
49 


FLYING     FOR      FRANCE 

call  to  your  mechanician,  adjusting 
your  gasolene  and  air  throttles  while 
he  grips  the  propeller. 

Contact !  he  shrieks,  and  Contact ! 
you  reply.  You  snap  on  the  switch, 
he  spins  the  propeller,  and  the  motor 
takes.  Drawing  forward  out  of  line, 
you  put  on  full  power,  race  across  the 
grass  and  take  the  air.  The  ground 
drops  as  the  hood  slants  up  before 
you  and  you  seem  to  be  going  more 
and  more  slowly  as  you  rise.  At  a 
great  height  you  hardly  realize  you 
are  moving.  You  glance  at  the  clock 
to  note  the  time  of  your  departure, 
and  at  the  oil  gauge  to  see  its  throb. 
The  altimeter  registers  650  feet.  You 
turn  and  look  back  at  the  field  below 
and  see  others  leaving. 

In  three  minutes  you  are  at  about 
4,000  feet.  You  have  been  making 
50 


TWO   MEMBERS  OF  THE  AMERICAN   ESCADRILLE 
Of  the  French  Flying  Service,  who  were  killed  flying  for  France 

Upper  picture:  Norman  Prince,  of  Boston,  Mass. 
Lower  picture:  Victor  Chapman,  of  New  York  City 


FLYING     FOR     FRANCE 

—  i I       *«m  —1i«IMi.JI    ii  i    ■    ■  ■■■  .i    inn  ■     ii    ■.>■■■■* 

wide  circles  over  the  field  and  watch- 
ing the  other  machines.  At  4,500 
feet  you  throttle  down  and  wait  on 
that  level  for  your  companions  to 
catch  up.  Soon  the  escadrille  is 
bunched  and  off  for  the  lines.  You 
begin  climbing  again,  gulping  to  clear 
your  ears  in  the  changing  pressure. 
Surveying  the  other  machines,  you 
recognize  the  pilot  of  each  by  the 
marks  on  its  side — or  by  the  way  he 
flies.  The  distinguishing  marks  of 
the  Nieuports  are  various  and  some- 
times amusing.  Bert  Hall,  for  in- 
stance, has  Bert  painted  on  the  left 
side  of  his  plane  and  the  same  word 
reversed  (as  if  spelled  backward  with 
the  left  hand)  on  the  right — so  an 
aviator  passing  him  on  that  side  at 
great  speed  will  be  able  to  read  the 
name  without  difficulty,  he  says! 
51 


FLYING      FOR      FRANCE 

The  country  below  has  changed 
into  a  flat  surface  of  varicoloured 
figures.  Woods  are  irregular  blocks 
of  dark  green,  like  daubs  of  ink  spilled 
on  a  table;  fields  are  geometrical  de- 
signs of  different  shades  of  green  and 
brown,  forming  in  composite  an  ultra- 
cubist  painting;  roads  are  thin  white 
lines,  each  with  its  distinctive  wind- 
ings and  crossings — from  which  you 
determine  your  location.  The  higher 
you  are  the  easier  it  is  to  read. 

In  about  ten  minutes  you  see  the 
Meuse  sparkling  in  the  morning  light, 
and  on  either  side  the  long  line  of 
sausage-shaped  observation  balloons 
far  below  you.  Red-roofed  Verdun 
springs  into  view  just  beyond.  There 
are  spots  in  it  where  no  red  shows  and 
you  know  what  has  happened  there 
In  the  green  pasture  land  bordering 
52 


FLYING      FOR      FRANCE 

the  town,  round  flecks  of  brown  indi- 
cate the  shell  holes.  You  cross  the 
Meuse. 

VERDUN,  SEEN  FROM  THE  SKY 

Immediately  east  and  north  of 
Verdun  there  lies  a  broad,  brown  band. 
From  the  Woevre  plain  it  runs  west- 
ward to  the  "S"  bend  in  the  Meuse, 
and  on  the  left  bank  of  that  famous 
stream  continues  on  into  the  Argonne 
Forest.  Peaceful  fields  and  farms 
and  villages  adorned  that  landscape 
a  few  months  ago — when  there  was  no 
Battle  of  Verdun.  Now  there  is  only 
that  sinister  brown  belt,  a  strip  of 
murdered  Nature.  It  seems  to  be- 
long to  another  world.  Every  sign  of 
humanity  has  been  swept  away.  The 
woods  and  roads  have  vanished  like 
chalk  wiped  from  a  blackboard;  of 
53 


FLYING     FOR     FRANCE 

the  villages  nothing  remains  but  gray 
smears  where  stone  walls  have  tum- 
bled together.  The  great  forts  of 
Douaumont  and  Vaux  are  outlined 
faintly,  like  the  tracings  of  a  finger  in 
wet  sand.  One  cannot  distinguish 
any  one  shell  crater,  as  one  can  on  the 
pockmarked  fields  on  either  side.  On 
the  brown  band  the  indentations  are 
so  closely  interlocked  that  they  blend 
into  a  confused  mass  of  troubled  earth. 
Of  the  trenches  only  broken,  half- 
obliterated  links  are  visible. 

Columns  of  muddy  smoke  spurt  up 
continually  as  high  explosives  tear 
deeper  into  this  ulcered  area.  During 
heavy  bombardment  and  attacks  I 
have  seen  shells  falling  like  rain.  The 
countless  towers  of  smoke  remind  one 
of  Gustave  D ore's  picture  of  the 
fiery  tombs  of  the  arch-heretics  in 
54 


FLYING      FOR     FRANCE 

Dante's  "Hell."  A  smoky  pall  covers 
the  sector  under  fire,  rising  so  high 
that  at  a  height  of  1,000  feet  one  is 
enveloped  in  its  mist-like  fumes.  Now 
and  then  monster  projectiles  hurtling 
through  the  air  close  by  leave  one's 
plane  rocking  violently  in  their  wake. 
Airplanes  have  been  cut  in  two  by  them. 

THE   ROAR   OF   BATTLE — UNHEARD 

For  us  the  battle  passes  in  silence, 
the  noise  of  one's  motor  deadening 
all  other  sounds.  In  the  green  patches 
behind  the  brown  belt  myriads  of 
tiny  flashes  tell  where  the  guns  are 
hidden;  and  those  flashes,  and  the 
smoke  of  bursting  shells,  are  all  we 
see  of  the  fighting.  It  is  a  weird 
combination  of  stillness  and  havoc, 
the  Verdun  conflict  viewed  from  the 
sky. 

55 


FLYING      FOR      FRANCE 

Far  below  us,  the  observation  and 
range-finding  planes  circle  over  the 
trenches  like  gliding  gulls .  At  a  feeble 
altitude  they  follow  the  attacking 
infantrymen  and  flash  back  wireless 
reports  of  the  engagement.  Only 
through  them  can  communication  be 
maintained  when,  under  the  barrier 
fire,  wires  from  the  front  lines  are  cut. 
Sometimes  it  falls  to  our  lot  to  guard 
these  machines  from  Germans  eager 
to  swoop  down  on  their  backs.  Sail- 
ing about  high  above  a  busy  flock  of 
them  makes  one  feel  like  an  old  mother 
hen  protecting  her  chicks. 

"navigating"  in  a  sea  of  clouds 

The   pilot   of   an   avion   de   chasse 

must  not  concern  himself  with   the 

ground,  which  to  him  is  useful  only 

for  learning  his  whereabouts.     The 

56 


FLYING     FOR     FRANCE 

earth  is  all-important  to  the  men 
in  the  observation,  artillery-regulating, 
and  bombardment  machines,  but  the 
fighting  aviator  has  an  entirely  dif- 
ferent sphere.  His  domain  is  the 
blue  heavens,  the  glistening  rolls  of 
clouds  below  the  fleecy  banks  tower- 
ing above,  the  vague  aerial  horizon, 
and  he  must  watch  it  as  carefully 
as  a  navigator  watches  the  storm- 
tossed  sea. 

On  days  when  the  clouds  form 
almost  a  solid  flooring,  one  feels  very 
much  at  sea,  and  wonders  if  one  is  in 
the  navy  instead  of  aviation.  The 
diminutive  Nieuports  skirt  the  white 
expanse  like  torpedo  boats  in  an 
arctic  sea,  and  sometimes,  far  across 
the  cloud-waves,  one  sights  an  enemy 
escadrille,  moving  as  a  fleet. 

Principally   our   work   consists   of 

£7 


FLYING     FOR    FRANCE 

keeping  German  airmen  away  from 
our  lines,  and  in  attacking  them  when 
opportunity  offers.  We  traverse  the 
brown  band  and  enter  enemy  territory 
to  the  accompaniment  of  an  anti- 
aircraft cannonade .  Most  of  the  shots 
are  wild,  however,  and  we  pay  little 
attention  to  them.  When  the  shrap- 
nel comes  uncomfortably  close,  one 
shifts  position  slightly  to  evade  the 
range.  One  glances  up  to  see  if  there 
is  another  machine  higher  than  one's 
own.  Low  and  far  within  the  Ger- 
man lines  are  several  enemy  planes, 
a  dull  white  in  appearance,  resembling 
sand  flies  against  the  mottled  earth. 
High  above  them  one  glimpses  the 
mosquito-like  forms  of  two  Fokkers. 
Away  off  to  one  side  white  shrapnel 
puffs  are  vaguely  visible,  perhaps 
directed  against  a  German  crossing 
58 


FLYING      FOR     FRANCE 

the  lines.  We  approach  the  enemy 
machines  ahead,  only  to  find  them 
slanting  at  a  rapid  rate  into  their  own 
country.  High  above  them  lurks  a 
protection  plane.  The  man  doing 
the  "ceiling  work,"  as  it  is  called,  will 
look  after  him  for  us. 

TACTICS   OF   AN   AIR   BATTLE 

Getting  started  is  the -hardest  part 
of  an  attack.  Once  you  have  begun 
diving  you're  all  right.  The  pilot 
just  ahead  turns  tail  up  like  a  trout 
dropping  back  to  water,  and  swoops 
down  in  irregular  curves  and  circles. 
You  follow  at  an  angle  so  steep  your 
feet  seem  to  be  holding  you  back  in 
your  seat.  Now  the  black  Maltese 
crosses  on  the  German's  wings  stand 
out  clearly.  You  think  of  him  as 
some  sort  of  big  bug.  Then  you  hear 
59 


FLYING      FO.R      FRANCE 

the  rapid  tut-tut-tut  of  his  machine 
gun.  The  man  that  dived  ahead  of 
you  becomes  mixed  up  with  the  top- 
most German.  He  is  so  close  it  looks 
as  if  he  had  hit  the  enemy  machine. 
You  hear  the  staccato  barking  of  his 
mitrailleuse  and  see  him  pass  from 
under  the  German's  tail. 

The  rattle  of  the  gun  that  is  aimed 
at  you  leaves  you  undisturbed.  Only 
when  the  bullets  pierce  the  wings  a  few 
feet  off  do  you  become  uncomfortable. 
You  see  the  gunner  crouched  down 
behind  his  weapon,  but  you  aim  at 
Where  the  pilot  ought  to  be — there  are 
two  men  aboard  the  German  craft — 
and  press  on  the  release  hard.  Your 
mitrailleuse  hammers  out  a  stream  of 
bullets  as  you  pass  over  and  dive, 
nose  down,  to  get  out  of  range.  Then, 
hopefully,  you  re-dress  and  look  back 
60 


FLYING      FOR     FRANCE 

at  the  foe.  He  ought  to  be  dropping 
earthward  at  several  miles  a  minute. 
As  a  matter  of  fact,  however,  he  is 
sailing  serenely  on.  They  have  an 
annoying  habit  of  doing  that,  these 
Boches. 

Rockwell,  who  attacked  so  often 
that  he  has  lost  all  count,  and  whc 
shoves  his  machine  gun  fairly  in  the 
faces  of  the  Germans,  used  to  swear 
their  planes  were  armoured.  Lieu- 
tenant de  Laage,  whose  list  of  com- 
bats is  equally  extensive,  has  brought 
down  only  one.  Hall,  with  three 
machines  to  his  credit,  has  had  more 
luck.  Lufbery,  who  evidently  has 
evolved  a  secret  formula,  has  dropped 
four,  according  to  official  statistics, 
since  his  arrival  on  the  Verdun  front. 
Four  "palms" — the  record  for  the 
escadrille,  glitter  upon  the  ribbon  of 
61 


FLYING      FOR     FRANCE 

the   Croix   de    Guerre   accompanying 
his  Medaile  Militaire.1 

A  pilot  seldom  has  the  satisfaction 
of  beholding  the  result  of  his  bull's-eye 
bullet.  Rarely — so  difficult  it  is  to 
follow  the  turnings  and  twistings  of 
the  dropping  plane — does  he  see  his 
fallen  foe  strike  the  ground.  Luf- 
bery's  last  direct  hit  was  an  exception, 
for  he  followed  all  that  took  place  from 
a  balcony  seat.  I  myself  was  in  the 
"nigger-heaven,"  so  I  know.  We 
had  set  out  on  a  sortie  together  just 
before  noon,  one  August  day,  and  for 
the  first  time  on  such  an  occasion  had 
lost  each  other  over  the  lines.  Seeing 
no  Germans,  I  passed  my  time  hover- 
ing over  the  French  observation  ma- 
chines.    Lufbery  found  one,  however, 

xThis  book  was  written  in  the  fall  of  1915.  Since  that 
time  many  additional  machines  have  been  credited  to  the 
American  flyers. 

62 


FLYING      FOR      FRANCE 

» 

and  promptly  brought  it  down.  Just 
then  I  chanced  to  make  a  southward 
turn,  and  caught  sight  of  an  airplane 
falling  out  of  the  sky  into  the  German 
lines. 

As  it  turned  over,  it  showed  its 
white  belly  for  an  instant,  then  seemed 
to  straighten  out,  and  planed  down- 
ward in  big  zigzags.  The  pilot  must 
have  gripped  his  controls  even  in 
death,  for  his  craft  did  not  tumble  as 
most  do.  It  passed  between  my  line 
of  vision  and  a  wood,  into  which  it  dis- 
appeared. Just  as  I  was  going  down  to 
find  out  where  it  landed,  I  saw  it 
again  skimming  across  a  field,  and 
heading  straight  for  the  brown  band 
beneath  me.  It  was  outlined  against 
the  shell-racked  earth  like  a  tiny  in- 
sect, until  just  northwest  of  Fort 
Douaumont  it  crashed  down  upon  the 
63 


FLYING      FOR      FRANCE 

battlefield.  A  sheet  of  flame  and 
smoke  shot  up  from  the  tangled 
wreckage.  For  a  moment  or  two  I 
watched  it  burn;  then  I  went  back  to 
the  observation  machines. 

I  thought  Lufbery  would  show  up 
and  point  to  where  the  German  had 
fallen.  He  failed  to  appear,  and  I  be- 
gan to  be  afraid  it  was  he  whom  I  had 
seen  come  down,  instead  of  an  enemy. 
I  spent  a  worried  hour  before  my  re- 
turn homeward.  After  getting  back 
I  learned  that  Lufbery  was  quite  safe, 
having  hurried  in  after  the  fight  to  re- 
port the  destruction  of  his  adversary 
before  somebody  else  claimed  him, 
which  is  only  too  frequently  the  case. 
Observation  posts,  however,  con- 
firmed Lufbery' s  story,  and  he  was  of 
course  very  much  delighted.  Never- 
theless, at  luncheon,  I  heard  him 
64 


FLYING     FOR     FRANCE 

murmuring,  half  to  himself:  "Those 
poor  fellows." 

The  German  machine  gun  operator, 
having  probably  escaped  death  in  the 
air,  must  have  had  a  hideous  descent. 
Lufbery  told  us  he  had  seen  the  whole 
thing,  spiralling  down  after  the  Ger- 
man. He  said  he  thought  the  Ger- 
man pilot  must  be  a  novice,  judging 
from  his  manoeuvres.  It  occurred  to 
me  that  he  might  have  been  making 
his  first  flight  over  the  lines,  doubtless 
full  of  enthusiasm  about  his  career. 
Perhaps,  dreaming  of  the  Iron  Cross 
and  his  Gretchen,  he  took  a  chance — 
and  then  swift  death  and  a  grave  in 
the  shell-strewn  soil  of  Douaumont. 

Generally  the  escadrille  is  relieved 
by  another  fighting  unit  after  two 
hours  over  the  lines.  We  turn  home- 
ward, and  soon  the  hangars  of  our 
65 


FLYING      FOR      FRANCE 

field  loom  up  in  the  distance.  Some- 
times I've  been  mighty  glad  to  see 
them  and  not  infrequently  I've  con- 
cluded the  pleasantest  part  of  flying 
is  just  after  a  good  landing.  Getting 
home  after  a  sortie,  we  usually  go  into 
the  rest  tent,  and  talk  over  the  morn- 
ing's work.  Then  some  of  us  lie  down 
for  a  nap,  while  others  play  cards  or 
read.  After  luncheon  we  go  to  the 
field  again,  and  the  man  on  guard  gets 
his  chance  to  eat.  If  the  morning 
sortie  has  been  an  early  one,  we  go  up 
again  about  one  o'clock  in  the  after- 
noon. We  are  home  again  in  two 
hours  and  after  that  two  or  three 
energetic  pilots  may  make  a  third  trip 
over  the  lines.  The  rest  wait  around 
ready  to  take  the  air  if  an  enemy 
bombardment  group  ventures  to  visit 
our  territory — as  it  has  done  more 
66 


FLYING      FOR     FRANCE 

than  once  over  Bar-le-Duc.  False 
alarms  are  plentiful,  and  we  spend 
many  hours  aloft  squinting  at  an 
empty  sky. 

prince's  aerial  fireworks 

Now  and  then  one  of  us  will  get 
ambitious  to  do  something  on  his  own 
account.  Not  long  ago  Norman 
Prince  became  obsessed  with  the  idea 
of  bringing  down  a  German  "saus- 
age," as  observation  balloons  are 
called.  He  had  a  special  device 
mounted  on  his  Nieuport  for  setting 
fire  to  the  aerial  frankfurters.  Thus 
equipped  he  resembled  an  advance 
agent  for  Payne's  fireworks  more  than 
an  aviateur  de  chasse.  Having  care- 
fully mapped  the  enemy  "sausages," 
he  would  sally  forth  in  hot  pursuit 
whenever  one  was  signalled  at  a  re- 
67 


FLYING      FOR      FRANCE 

spectable  height.  Poor  Norman  had 
a  terrible  time  of  it!  Sometimes  the 
reported  "sausages"  were  not  there 
when  he  arrived,  and  sometimes  there 
was  a  super-abundancy  of  German 
airplanes  on  guard. 

He  stuck  to  it,  however,  and  finally 
his  appetite  for  "sausage"  was  satis- 
fied. He  found  one  just  where  it 
ought  to  be,  swooped  down  upon  it, 
and  let  off  his  fireworks  with  all  the 
gusto  of  an  American  boy  on  the 
Fourth  of  July.  When  he  looked 
again,  the  balloon  had  vanished. 
Prince's  performance  isn't  so  easy  as 
it  sounds,  by  the  way.  If,  after  the 
long  dive  necessary  to  turn  the  trick 
successfully,  his  motor  had  failed  to 
retake,  he  would  have  fallen  into  the 
hands  of  the  Germans. 

After  dark,  when  flying  is  over  for 
68 


FLYING     FOR     FRANCE 

the  day,  we  go  down  to  the  villa  for 
dinner.  Usually  we  have  two  or 
three  French  officers  dining  with  us 
besides  our  own  captain  and  lieu- 
tenant, and  so  the  table  talk  is  a 
mixture  of  French  and  English.  It's 
seldom  we  discuss  the  war  in  general. 
Mostly  the  conversation  revolves 
about  our  own  sphere,  for  just  as  in 
the  navy  the  sea  is  the  favourite 
topic,  and  in  the  army  the  trenches,  so 
with  us  it  is  aviation.  Our  knowledge 
about  the  military  operations  is  scant. 
We  haven't  the  remotest  idea  as  to 
what  has  taken  place  on  the  battle- 
field— even  though  we've  been  flying 
over  it  during  an  attack — until  we 
read  the  papers ;  and  they  don't  tell  us 
much. 

Frequently  pilots  from  other  esca- 
drilles  will  be  our  guests  in  passing 
69 


FLYING      FOR      FRANCE 

through  our  sector,  and  through  these 
visitations  we  keep  in  touch  with  the 
aerial  news  of  the  day,  and  with  our 
friends  along  the  front.  Gradually 
we  have  come  to  know  a  great  number 
of  pilotes  de  chasse.  We  hear  that 
so-&-so  has  been  killed,  that  some  one 
else  has  brought  down  a  Boche  and 
that  still  another  is  a  prisoner. 

We  don't  always  talk  aviation, 
however.  In  the  course  of  dinner 
almost  any  subject  may  be  touched 
upon,  and  with  our  cosmopolitan 
crowd  one  can  readily  imagine  the 
scope  of  the  conversation.  A  Burton 
Holmes  lecture  is  weak  and  watery 
compared  to  the  travel  stories  we 
listen  to.  Were  0.  Henry  alive,  he 
could  find  material  for  a  hundred  new 
yarns,  and  William  James  numerous 
pointers  for  another  work  on  psy- 
70 


FLYING     FOR      FRANCE 

chology,  while  De  Quincey  might 
multiply  his  dreams  ad  infinitum. 
Doubtless  alienists  as  well  as  fiction 
writers  would  find  us  worth  studying. 
In  France  there's  a  saying  that 
to  be  an  aviator  one  must  be  a  bit 
"off." 

After  dinner  the  same  scene  in- 
variably repeats  itself,  over  the  coffee 
in  the  "next  room."  At  the  big  table 
several  sportive  souls  start  a  poker 
game,  while  at  a  smaller  one  two  se- 
date spirits  wrap  themselves  in  the 
intricacies  of  chess.  Captain  The- 
nault  labours  away  at  the  messroom 
piano,  or  in  lighter  mood  plays  with 
Fram,  his  police  dog.  A  phonograph 
grinds  out  the  ancient  query  "Who 
Paid  the  Rent  for  Mrs.  Rip  Van 
Winkle?"  or  some  other  ragtime  ditty. 
It  is  barely  nine,  however,  when  the 
71 


FLYING      FOR      FRANCE 

movement  in  the   direction  of  bed 
begins. 

A  few  of  us  remain  behind  a  little 
while,  and  the  talk  becomes  more 
personal  and  more  sincere.  Only  on 
such  intimate  occasions,  I  think,  have 
I  ever  heard  death  discussed.  Cer- 
tainly we  are  not  indifferent  to  it. 
Not  many  nights  ago  one  of  the  pilots 
remarked  in  a  tired  way : 

"Know  what  I  want?  Just  six 
months  of  freedom  to  go  where  and 
do  what  I  like.  In  that  time  I'd  get 
everything  I  wanted  out  of  life,  and 
be  perfectly  willing  to  come  back  and 
be  killed." 

Then  another,  who  was  about  to 
receive  2,000  francs  from  the  Ameri- 
can committee  that  aids  us,  as  a 
reward  for  his  many  citations,  chimed 
in. 

72 


FLYING     FOR     FRANCE 

"Well,  I  didn't  care  much  before," 
he  confessed,  "but  now  with  this 
money  coming  in  I  don't  want  to  die 
until  I've  had  the  fun  of  spending  it." 

So  saying,  he  yawned  and  went  up 
to  bed. 


73 


CHAPTER  II 

VERDUN   TO   THE    SOMME 

On  the  12th  of  October,  twenty 
small  airplanes  flying  in  a  V  formation, 
at  such  a  height  they  resembled  a 
flock  of  geese,  crossed  the  river  Rhine, 
where  it  skirts  the  plains  of  Alsace, 
and,  turning  north,  headed  for  the 
famous  Mauser  works  at  Oberndorf. 
Following  in  their  wake  was  an  equal 
number  of  larger  machines,  and  above 
these  darted  and  circled  swift  fighting 
planes.  The  first  group  of  aircraft 
was  flown  by  British  pilots,  the  second 
by  French  and  three  of  the  fighting 
planes  by  Americans  in  the  French 
Aviation  Division.  It  was  a  cos- 
74 


FLYING      FOR      FRANCE 

mopolitan  collection  that  effected  that 
successful  raid. 

We  American  pilots,  who  are 
grouped  into  one  escadrille,  had  been 
fighting  above  the  battlefield  of  Ver- 
dun from  the  20th  of  May  until  orders 
came  the  middle  of  September  for  us 
to  leave  our  airplanes,  for  a  unit  that 
would  replace  us,  and  to  report  at  Le 
Bourget,  the  great  Paris  aviation 
centre. 

The  mechanics  and  the  rest  of  the 
personnel  left,  as  usual,  in  the  esca- 
drille's  trucks  with  the  material.  For 
once  the  pilots  did  not  take  the  aerial 
route  but  they  boarded  the  Paris  ex- 
press at  Bar-le-Duc  with  all  the  en- 
thusiasm of  schoolboys  off  for  a  va- 
cation. They  were  to  have  a  week  in 
the  capital!  Where  they  were  to  go 
after  that  they  did  not  know,  but  pre- 
75 


FLYING      FOR      FRANCE 

sumed  it  would  be  the  Somme.  As  a 
matter  of  fact  the  escadrille  was  to  be 
sent  to  Luxeuil  in  the  Vosges  to  take 
part  in  the  Mauser  raid. 

Besides  Captain  Thenault  and  Lieu- 
tenant de  Laage  de  Mieux,  our  French 
officers,  the  following  American  pilots 
were  in  the  escadrille  at  this  time: 
Lieutenant  Thaw,  who  had  returned 
to  the  front,  even  though  his  wounded 
arm  had  not  entirely  healed;  Adju- 
tants Norman  Prince,  Hall,  Lufbery, 
and  Masson;  and  Sergeants  Kiflin. 
Rockwell,  Hill,  Pavelka,  Johnson,  and 
Rumsey.  I  had  been  sent  to  a  hos- 
pital at  the  end  of  August,  because  of 
a  lame  back  resulting  from  a  smash  up 
in  landing,  and  couldn't  follow  the 
escadrille  until  later. 

Every  aviation  unit  boasts  several 
mascots.  Dogs  of  every  description 
76 


FLYING      FOR      FRANCE 

are  to  be  seen  around  the  camps,  but 
the  Americans  managed,  during  their 
stay  in  Paris,  to  add  to  their  men- 
agerie by  the  acquisition  of  a  lion  cub 
named  "Whiskey."  The  little  chap 
had  been  born  on  a  boat  crossing  from 
Africa  and  was  advertised  for  sale  in 
France.  Some  of  the  American  pilots 
chipped  in  and  bought  him.  He  was 
a  cute,  bright-eyed  baby  lion  who 
tried  to  roar  in  a  most  threatening 
manner  but  who  was  blissfully  con- 
tent the  moment  one  gave  him  one's 
finger  to  suck.  "Whiskey"  got  a 
good  view  of  Paris  during  the  few  days 
he  was  there,  for  some  one  in  the 
crowd  was  always  borrowing  him  to 
take  him  some  place.  He,  like  most 
lions  in  captivity,  became  acquainted 
with  bars,  but  the  sort  "Whiskey"  saw 
were  not  for  purposes  of  confinement. 
77 


FLYING      FOR      FRANCE 

The  orders  came  directing  the  es- 
cadrille  to  Luxeuil  and  bidding  fare- 
well to  gay  "Paree"  the  men  boarded 
the  Belfort  train  with  bag  and  bag- 
gage— and  the  lion.  Lions,  it  de- 
veloped, were  not  allowed  in  passenger 
coaches.  The  conductor  was  assured 
that  "Whiskey"  was  quite  harmless 
and  was  going  to  overlook  the  rules 
when  the  cub  began  to  roar  and  tried 
to  get  at  the  railwayman's  finger. 
That  settled  it,  so  two  of  the  men  had 
to  stay  behind  in  order  to  crate  up 
"Whiskey"  and  take  him  along  the 
next  day. 

The  escadrille  was  joined  in  Paris  by 
Robert  Rockwell,  of  Cincinnati,  who 
had  finished  his  training  as  a  pilot,  and 
was  waiting  at  the  Reserve  (Robert 
Rockwell  had  gone  to  France  to  work 
as  a  surgeon  in  one  of  the  American 
78 


FLYING      FOR      FRANCE 

war  hospitals.  He  disliked  remaining 
in  the  rear  and  eventually  enlisted  in 
aviation). 

The  period  of  training  for  a  pilot, 
especially  for  one  who  is  to  fly  a  fight- 
ing machine  at  the  front,  has  been 
very  much  prolonged.  It  is  no  longer 
sufficient  that  he  learns  to  fly  and  to 
master  various  types  of  machines.  He 
now  completes  his  training  in  schools 
where  aerial  shooting  is  taught,  and  in 
others  where  he  practises  combat, 
group  manoeuvres,  and  acrobatic 
stunts  such  as  looping  the  loop  and 
the  more  difficult  tricks.  In  all 
it  requires  from  seven  to  nine 
months. 

Dennis  Dowd,  of  Brooklyn,  N.  Y., 

is  so  far  the  only  American  volunteer 

aviator    killed    while    in    training. 

Dowd,  who  had  joined  the  Foreign 

79 


FLYING      FOR      FRANCE 

Legion,  shortly  after  the  war  broke 
out,  was  painfully  wounded  during 
the  offensive  in  Champagne.  After 
his  recovery  he  was  transferred,  at  his 
request,  into  aviation.  At  the  Buc 
school  he  stood  at  the  head  of  the 
fifteen  Americans  who  were  learning 
to  be  aviators,  and  was  considered  one 
of  the  most  promising  pilots  in  the 
training  camp.  On  August  11,  1916, 
while  making  a  flight  preliminary  to 
his  brevet,  Dowd  fell  from  a  height  of 
only  260  feet  and  was  instantly  killed. 
Either  he  had  fainted  or  a  control 
had  broken. 

While  a  patient  at  the  hospital 
Dowd  had  been  sent  packages  by  a 
young  French  girl  of  Neuilly.  A  cor- 
respondence ensued,  and  when  Dowd 
went  to  Paris  on  convalescent  leave 
he  and  the  young  lady  became  en- 
80 


FLYING      FOR      FRANCE 

gaged.  He  was  killed  just  before  the 
time  set  for  the  wedding. 

When  the  escadrille  arrived  at 
Luxeuil  it  found  a  great  surprise  in  the 
form  of  a  large  British  aviation  con- 
tingent. This  detachment  from  the 
Royal  Navy  Flying  Corps  numbered 
more  than  fifty  pilots  and  a  thousand 
men.  New  hangars  harboured  their 
fleet  of  bombardment  machines. 
Their  own  anti-aircraft  batteries  were 
in  emplacements  near  the  field. 
Though  detached  from  the  British 
forces  and  under  French  command 
this  unit  followed  the  rule  of  His 
Majesty's  armies  in  France  by  re- 
ceiving all  of  its  food  and  supplies 
from  England.  It  had  its  own  trans- 
port service. 

Our  escadrille  had  been  in  Luxeuil 
during  the  months  of  April  and  May. 
81 


FLYING      FOR      FRANCE 

We  had  made  many  friends  amongst 
the  townspeople  and  the  French  pilots 
stationed  there,  so  the  older  members 
of  the  American  unit  were  welcomed 
with  open  arms  and  their  new  com- 
rades made  to  feel  at  home  in  the 
quaint  Vosges  town.  It  wasn't  long, 
however,  before  the  Americans  and 
the  British  got  together.  At  first 
there  was  a  feeling  of  reserve  on  both 
sides  but  once  acquainted  they  be- 
came fast  friends.  The  naval  pilots 
were  quite  representative  of  the 
United  Kingdom  hailing  as  they  did 
from  England,  Canada,  New  South 
Wales,  South  Africa,  and  other  parts 
of  the  Empire.  Most  of  them  were 
soldiers  by  profession.  All  were 
officers,  but  they  were  as  democratic 
as  it  is  possible  to  be.  As  a  result 
there  was  a  continuous  exchange  of 
82 


"WHISKEY" 

The  lion  and  mascot  of  the  American  flying  squadron  in 
France 


FLYING      FOR      FRANCE 

dinners.  In  a  few  days  every  one  in 
this  Anglo-American  alliance  was  cal- 
ling each  other  by  some  nickname  and 
swearing  lifelong  friendship. 

"We  didn't  know  what  you  Yanks 
would  be  like,"  remarked  one  of  the 
Englishmen  one  day.  "Thought  you 
might  be  snobby  on  account  of  being 
volunteers,  but  I  swear  you're  a 
bloody  human  lot."  That,  I  will  ex- 
plain, is  a  very  fine  compliment. 

There  was  trouble  getting  new  air- 
planes for  every  one  in  the  escadrille. 
Only  five  arrived.  They  were  the 
new  model  Nieuport  fighting  machine. 
Instead  of  having  only  140  square  feet 
of  supporting  surface,  they  had  160, 
and  the  forty-seven  shot  Lewis 
machine  gun  had  been  replaced  by  the 
Vickers,  which  fires  five  hundred 
rounds.  This  gun  is  mounted  on  the 
83 


FLYING      FOR      FRANCE 

hood  and  by  means  of  a  timing  gear 
shoots  through  the  propeller.  The 
160  foot  Nieuport  mounts  at  a  ter- 
rific rate,  rising  to  7,000  feet  in  six 
minutes.  It  will  go  to  20,000  feet 
handled  by  a  skillful  pilot. 

It  was  some  time  before  these  air- 
planes arrived  and  every  one  was  idle. 
There  was  nothing  to  do  but  loaf 
around  the  hotel,  where  the  American 
pilots  were  quartered,  visit  the  British 
in  their  barracks  at  the  field,  or  go 
walking.  It  was  about  as  much  like 
war  as  a  Bryan  lecture.  While  I  was 
in  the  hospital  I  received  a  letter 
written  at  this  time  from  one  of  the 
boys.  I  opened  it  expecting  to  read 
of  an  air  combat.  It  informed  me 
that  Thaw  had  caught  a  trout  three 
feet  long,  and  that  Lufbery  had 
picked  two  baskets  of  mushrooms. 
84 


FLYING      FOR      FRANCE 

Day  after  day  the  British  planes 
practised  formation  flying.  The  reg- 
ularity with  which  the  squadron's 
machines  would  leave  the  ground  was 
remarkable.  The  twenty  Sopwiths 
took  the  air  at  precise  intervals,  flew 
together  in  a  V  formation  while  ex- 
ecuting difficult  manoeuvres,  and 
landed  one  after  the  other  with  the 
exactness  of  clockwork.  The  French 
pilots  flew  the  Farman  and  Breguet 
bombardment  machines  whenever  the 
weather  permitted.  Every  one  knew 
some  big  bombardment  was  ahead  but 
when  it  would  be  made  or  what  place 
was  to  be  attacked  was  a  secret. 

Considering  the  number  of  ma- 
chines that  were  continually  roaring 
above  the  field  at  Luxeuil  it  is  re- 
markable that  only  two  fatal  accidents 
occurred.  One  was  when  a  British 
85 


FLYING      FOR      FRANCE 

pilot  tried  diving  at  a  target,  for 
machine-gun  practice,  and  was  unable 
to  redress  his  airplane.  Both  he  and 
his  gunner  were  killed.  In  the  second 
accident  I  lost  a  good  friend — a  young 
Frenchman.  He  took  up  his  gunner 
in  a  two-seated  Nieuport.  A  young 
Canadian  pilot  accompanied  by  a 
French  officer  followed  in  a  Sopwith. 
When  at  about  a  thousand  feet  they 
began  to  manoeuvre  about  one  an- 
other. In  making  a  turn  too  close  the 
tips  of  their  wings  touched.  The 
Nieuport  turned  downward,  its  wings 
folded,  and  it  fell  like  a  stone.  The 
Sopwith  fluttered  a  second  or  two, 
then  its  wings  buckled  and  it  dropped 
in  the  wake  of  the  Nieuport.  The  two 
men  in  each  of  the  planes  were  killed 
outright. 
Next  to  falling  in  flames  a  drop  in  a 
86 


FLYING      FOR      FRANCE 

wrecked  machine  is  the  worst  death 
an  aviator  can  meet.  I  know  of  no 
sound  more  horrible  than  that  made 
by  an  airplane  crashing  to  earth. 
Breathless  one  has  watched  the  un- 
controlled apparatus  tumble  through 
the  air.  The  agony  felt  by  the  pilot 
and  passenger  seems  to  transmit  itself 
to  you.  You  are  helpless  to  avert  the 
certain  death.  You  cannot  even  turn 
your  eyes  away  at  the  moment  of  im- 
pact. In  the  dull,  grinding  crash 
there  is  the  sound  of  breaking  bones. 
Luxeuil  was  an  excellent  place  to 
observe  the  difference  that  exists  be- 
tween the  French,  English,  and  Amer- 
ican aviatior,  but  when  all  is  said  and 
done  there  is  but  little  difference. 
The  Frenchman  is  the  most  natural 
pilot  and  the  most  adroit.  Flying 
comes  easier  to  him  than  to  an 
87 


FLYING      FOR      FRANCE 

Englishman  or  American,  but  once 
accustomed  to  an  airplane  and  the  air 
they  all  accomplish  the  same  amount 
of  work.  A  Frenchman  goes  about  it 
with  a  little  more  dash  than  the 
others,  and  puts  on  a  few  extra  frills, 
but  the  Englishman  calmly  carries  out 
his  mission  and  obtains  the  same  re- 
sults. An  American  is  a  combination 
of  the  two,  but  neither  better  nor 
worse.  Though  there  is  a  large  num- 
ber of  expert  German  airmen  I  do  not 
believe  the  average  Teuton  makes  as 
good  a  flier  as  a  Frenchman,  English- 
man, or  American. 

In  spite  of  their  bombardment  of 
open  towns  and  the  use  of  explosive 
bullets  in  their  aerial  machine  guns, 
the  Boches  have  shown  up  in  a  better 
light  in  aviation  than  in  any  other 
arm.  A  few  of  the  Hun  pilots  have 
88 


FLYING      FOR      FRANCE 

evinced  certain  elements  of  honor  and 
decency.  I  remember  one  chap  that 
was  the  right  sort. 

He  was  a  young  man  but  a  pilot  of 
long  standing.  An  old  infantry  cap- 
tain stationed  near  his  aviation  field 
at  Etain,  east  of  Verdun,  prevailed 
upon  this  German  pilot  to  take  him  on 
a  flight.  There  was  a  new  machine  to 
test  out  and  he  told  the  captain  to 
climb  aboard.  Foolishly  he  crossed 
the  trench  lines  and,  actuated  by  a  de- 
sire to  give  his  passenger  an  interest- 
ing trip,  proceeded  to  fly  over  the 
French  aviation  headquarters.  Un- 
fortunately for  him  he  encountered 
three  French  fighting  planes  which 
promptly  opened  fire.  The  German 
pilot  was  wounded  in  the  leg  and  the  gas- 
oline tank  of  his  airplane  was  pierced. 
Under  him  was  an  aviation  field.  He 
89 


FLYING      FOR      FRANCE 

decided  to  land.  The  machine  was 
captured  before  the  Germans  had 
time  to  burn  it  up.  Explosive  bullets 
were  discovered  in  the  machine  gun. 
A  French  officer  turned  to  the  German 
captain  and  informed  him  that  he 
would  probably  be  shot  for  using  ex- 
plosive bullets.  The  captain  did  not 
understand. 

"Don't  shoot  him,"  said  the  pilot, 
using  excellent  French,  "if  you're 
going  to  shoot  any  one  take  me.  The 
captain  has  nothing  to  do  with  the 
bullets.  He  doesn't  even  know  how 
to  work  a  machine  gun.  It's  his  first 
trip  in  an  airplane." 

"Well,  if  you'll  give  us  some  good 
information,  we  won't  shoot  you," 
said  the  French  officer. 

"Information,"  replied  the  Ger- 
man, "I  can't  give  you  any.  I  come 
90 


FLYING      FOR      FRANCE 

from  Etain,  and  you  know  where  that 
is  as  well  as  I  do." 

"No,  you  must  give  us  some  worth- 
while information,  or  I'm  afraid 
you'll  be  shot,"  insisted  the  French- 
man. 

"  If  I  give  you  worth-while  informa- 
tion," answered  the  pilot,  "you'll  go 
over  and  kill  a  lot  of  soldiers,  and  if  I 
don't  you'll  only  kill  one — so  go 
ahead." 

The  last  time  I  heard  of  the  Boche 
he  was  being  well  taken  care  of. 

Kiffin  Rockwell  and  Lufbery  were 
the  first  to  get  their  new  machines 
ready  and  on  the  23rd  of  September 
went  out  for  the  first  flight  since  the 
escadrille  had  arrived  at  Luxeuil. 
They  became  separated  in  the  air  but 
each  flew  on  alone,  which  was  a 
dangerous  thing  to  do  in  the  Alsace 
91 


FLYING      FOR      FRANCE 

sector.  There  is  but  little  fighting  in 
the  trenches  there,  but  great  air 
activity.  Due  to  the  British  and 
French  squadrons  at  Luxeuil,  and  the 
threat  their  presence  implied,  the  Ger- 
mans had  to  oppose  them  by  a  large 
fleet  of  fighting  machines.  I  believe 
there  were  more  than  forty  Fokkers 
alone  in  the  camps  of  Colmar  and 
Habsheim.  Observation  machines 
protected  by  two  or  three  fighting 
planes  would  venture  far  into  our 
lines.  It  is  something  the  Germans 
dare  not  do  on  any  other  part  of  the 
front.  They  had  a  special  trick  that 
consisted  in  sending  a  large,  slow  ob- 
servation machine  into  our  lines  to  in- 
vite attack.  When  a  French  plane 
would  dive  after  it,  two  Fokkers,  that 
had  been  hovering  high  overhead, 
would  drop  on  the  tail  of  the  French- 
92 


FLYING      FOR      FRANCE 

man  and  he  stood  but  small  chance  if 
caught  in  the  trap. 

Just  before  Kiffin  Rockwell  reached 
the  lines  he  spied  a  German  machine 
under  him  flying  at  11,000  feet.  I 
can  imagine  the  satisfaction  he  felt  in 
at  last  catching  an  enemy  plane  in  our 
lines.  Rockwell  had  fought  more 
combats  than  the  rest  of  us  put  to- 
gether, and  had  shot  down  many  Ger- 
man machines  that  had  fallen  in  their 
lines,  but  this  was  the  first  time  he  had 
had  an  opportunity  of  bringing  down 
a  Boche  in  our  territory. 

A  captain,  the  commandant  of  an 
Alsatian  village,  watched  the  aerial 
battle  through  his  field  glasses.  He 
said  that  Rockwell  approached  so 
close  to  the  enemy  that  he  thought 
there  would  be  a  collision.  The  Ger- 
man craft,  which  carried  two  machine 
93 


FLYING      FOR      FRANCE 

guns,  had  opened  a  rapid  fire  when 
Rockwell  started  his  dive.  He 
plunged  through  the  stream  of  lead 
and  only  when  very  close  to  his 
enemy  did  he  begin  shooting.  For  a 
second  it  looked  as  though  the  Ger- 
man was  falling,  so  the  captain  said, 
but  then  he  saw  the  French  machine 
turn  rapidly  nose  down,  the  wings  of 
one  side  broke  off  and  fluttered  in  the 
wake  of  the  airplane,  which  hurtled 
earthward  in  a  rapid  drop.  It  crashed 
into  the  ground  in  a  small  field — a  field 
of  flowers — a  few  hundred  yards  back 
of  the  trenches.  It  was  not  more  than 
two  and  a  half  miles  from  the  spot 
where  Rockwell,  in  the  month  of  May, 
brought  down  his  first  enemy  ma- 
chine. The  Germans  immediately 
opened  up  on  the  wreck  with  artillery 
fire.  In  spite  of  the  bursting  shrap- 
94 


FLYING      FOR      FRANCE 

nel,  gunners  from  a  near-by  battery 
rushed  out  and  recovered  poor  Rock- 
well's broken  body.  There  was  a 
hideous  wound  in  his  breast  where  an 
explosive  bullet  had  torn  through.  A 
surgeon  who  examined  the  body, 
testified  that  if  it  had  been  an  ordi- 
nary bullet  Rockwell  would  have  had 
an  even  chance  of  landing  with  only  a 
bad  wound.  As  it  was  he  was  killed 
the  instant  the  unlawful  missile  ex- 
ploded. 

Lufbery  engaged  a  German  craft 
but  before  he  could  get  to  close  range 
two  Fokkers  swooped  down  from  be- 
hind and  filled  his  aeroplane  full  of 
holes.  Exhausting  his  ammunition 
he  landed  at  Fontaine,  an  aviation 
field  near  the  lines.  There  he  learned 
of  Rockwell's  death  and  was  told  that 
two  other  French  machines  had  been 
95 


FLYING      FOR      FRANCE 

brought  down  within  the  hour.  He 
ordered  his  gasoline  tank  filled,  pro- 
cured a  full  band  of  cartridges  and 
soared  up  into  the  air  to  avenge  his 
comrade.  He  sped  up  and  down  the 
lines,  and  made  a  wide  detour  to 
Habsheim  where  the  Germans  have  an 
aviation  field,  but  all  to  no  avail.  Not 
a  Boche  was  in  the  air. 

The  news  of  Rockwell's  death  was 
telephoned  to  the  escadrille.  The 
captain,  lieutenant,  and  a  couple  of 
men  jumped  in  a  staff  car  and 
hastened  to  where  he  had  fallen.  On 
their  return  the  American  pilots  were 
convened  in  a  room  of  the  hotel  and 
the  news  was  broken  to  them.  With 
tears  in  his  eyes  the  captain  said: 
"The  best  and  bravest  of  us  all  is  no 
more." 

No  greater  blow  could  have  befallen 
96 


FLYING      FOR      FRANCE 

the  escadrille.  KifFin  was  its  soul. 
He  was  loved  and  looked  up  to  by  not 
only  every  man  in  our  flying  corps  but 
by  every  one  who  knew  him.  Kiffin 
was  imbued  with  the  spirit  of  the 
cause  for  which  he  fought  and  gave  his 
heart  and  soul  to  the  performance  of 
his  duty.  He  said:  "I  pay  my  part 
for  Lafayette  and  Rochambeau,"  and 
he  gave  the  fullest  measure.  The  old 
flame  of  chivalry  burned  brightly  in 
this  boy's  fine  and  sensitive  being. 
With  his  death  France  lost  one  of  her 
most  valuable  pilots.  When  he  was 
over  the  lines  the  Germans  did  not 
pass — and  he  was  over  them  most  of 
the  time.  .  He  brought  down  four 
enemy  planes  that  were  credited  to 
him  officially,  and  Lieutenant  de 
Laage,  who  was  his  fighting  partner, 
says  he  is  convinced  that  Rockwell 
97 


FLYING      FOR      FRANCE 

accounted  for  many  others  which  fell 
too  far  within  the  German  lines  to  be 
observed.  Rockwell  had  been  given 
the  Medaille  Militaire  and  the  Croix 
de  Guerre,  on  the  ribbon  of  which  he 
wore  four  palms,  representing  the  four 
magnificent  citations  he  had  received 
in  the  order  of  the  army.  As  a  fur- 
ther reward  for  his  excellent  work  he 
had  been  proposed  for  promotion  from 
the  grade  of  sergeant  to  that  of  second 
lieutenant.  Unfortunately  the  official 
order  did  not  arrive  until  a  few  days 
following  his  death. 

The  night  before  Rockwell  was 
killed  he  had  stated  that  if  he  were 
brought  down  he  would  like  to  be 
buried  where  he  fell.  It  was  im- 
possible, however,  to  place  him  in  a 
grave  so  near  the  trenches.  His  body 
was  draped  in  a  French  flag  and 
98 


KIFFIN  ROCKWELL,  OF  ASHEVILLE,  N.  C. 
Who  was  killed  in  an  air  duel  over  Verdun 

"  Kiffin  was  imbued  with  the  spirit  of  the  cause  for  which 
he  fought.  He  said:  'I  pay  my  part  for  Lafayette  and 
Rochambeau  '  "  (See  page  97) 


FLYING      FOR      FRANCE 

brought  back  to  Luxeuil.  He  was 
given  a  funeral  worthy  of  a  general. 
His  brother,  Paul,  who  had  fought  in 
the  Legion  with  him,  and  who  had 
been  rendered  unfit  for  service  by  a 
wound,  was  granted  permission  to 
attend  the  obsequies.  Pilots  from  all 
near-by  camps  flew  over  to  render 
homage  to  Rockwell's  remains. 
Every  Frenchman  in  the  aviation  at 
Luxeuil  marched  behind  the  bier. 
The  British  pilots,  followed  by  a  de- 
tachment of  five  hundred  of  their  men, 
were  in  line,  and  a  battalion  of  French 
troops  brought  up  the  rear.  As  the 
slow  moving  procession  of  blue  and 
khaki-clad  men  passed  from  the 
church  to  the  graveyard,  airplanes 
circled  at  a  feeble  height  above  and 
showered  down  myriads  of  flowers. 
Rockwell's  death  urged  the  rest  of 
99 


FLYING      FOR      FRANCE 

the  men  to  greater  action,  and  the  few 
who  had  machines  were  constantly 
after  the  Boches.  Prince  brought 
one  down.  Lufbery,  the  most  skillful 
and  successful  fighter  in  the  escadrille, 
would  venture  far  into  the  enemy's 
lines  and  spiral  down  over  a  German 
aviation  camp,  daring  the  pilots  to 
venture  forth.  One  day  he  stirred 
them  up,  but  as  he  was  short  of  fuel 
he  had  to  make  for  home  before  they 
took  to  the  air.  Prince  was  out  in 
search  of  a  combat  at  this  time.  He 
got  it.  He  ran  into  the  crowd  Luf- 
bery had  aroused.  Bullets  cut  into 
his  machine  and  one  exploding  on  the 
front  edge  of  a  lower  wing  broke  it. 
Another  shattered  a  supporting  mast. 
It  was  a  miracle  that  the  machine  did 
not  give  way.  As  badly  battered  as 
it  was  Prince  succeeded  in  bringing  it 
100 


FLYING      FOR      FRANCE 

back  from  over  Mulhouse,  where  the 
fight  occurred,  to  his  field  at  Luxeuil. 
The  same  day  that  Prince  was  so 
nearly  brought  down  Lufbery  missed 
death  by  a  very  small  margin.  He 
had  taken  on  more  gasoline  and  made 
another  sortie.  When  over  the  lines 
again  he  encountered  a  German  with 
whom  he  had  a  fighting  acquaintance. 
That  is  he  and  the  Boche,  who  was  an 
excellent  pilot,  had  tried  to  kill  each 
other  on  one  or  two  occasions  before. 
Each  was  too  good  for  the  other.  Luf- 
bery manoeuvred  for  position  but,  be- 
fore he  could  shoot,  the  Teuton  would 
evade  him  by  a  clever  turn.  They 
kept  after  one  another,  the  Boche  re- 
treating into  his  lines.  When  they 
were  nearing  Habsheim,  Lufbery 
glanced  back  and  saw  French  shrapnel 
bursting  over  the  trenches.  It  meant 
101 


FLYING      FOR      FRANCE 

a  German  plane  was  over  French 
territory  and  it  was  his  duty  to  drive 
it  off.  Swooping  down  near  his  ad- 
versary he  waved  good-bye,  the  enemy 
pilot  did  likewise,  and  Lufbery 
whirred  off  to  chase  the  other  repre- 
sentative of  Kultur.  He  caught  up 
with  him  and  dove  to  the  attack,  but 
he  was  surprised  by  a  German  he  had 
not  seen.  Before  he  could  escape 
three  bullets  entered  his  motor,  two 
passed  through  the  fur-lined  combina- 
tion he  wore,  another  ripped  open  one 
of  his  woolen  flying  boots,  his  air- 
plane was  riddled  from  wing  tip  to 
wing  tip,  and  other  bullets  cut  the 
elevating  plane.  Had  he  not  been  an 
exceptional  aviator  he  never  would 
have  brought  safely  to  earth  so  badly 
damaged  a  machine.  It  was  so 
thoroughly  shot  up  that  it  was  junked 
102 


FLYING      FOR      FRANCE 

as  being  beyond  repairs.  Fortunately 
Lufbery  was  over  French  territory  or 
his  forced  descent  would  have  resulted 
in  his  being  made  prisoner. 

I  know  of  only  one  other  airplane 
that  was  safely  landed  after  receiving 
as  heavy  punishment  as  did  Lufbery's. 
It  was  a  two-place  Nieuport  piloted 
by  a  young  Frenchman  named  Fon- 
taine with  whom  I  trained.  He  and 
his  gunner  attacked  a  German  over 
the  Bois  le  Pretre  who  dove  rapidly 
far  into  his  lines.  Fontaine  followed 
and  in  turn  was  attacked  by  three 
other  Boches.  He  dropped  to  escape, 
they  plunged  after  him  forcing  him 
lower.  He  looked  and  saw  a  German 
aviation  field  under  him.  He  was  by 
this  time  only  2,000  feet  above  the 
ground.  Fontaine  saw  the  mechanics 
rush  out  to  grasp  him,  thinking  he 
103 


FLYING      FOR      FRANCE 

would  land.  The  attacking  airplanes 
had  stopped  shooting.  Fontaine 
pulled  on  full  power  and  headed  for 
the  lines.  The  German  planes 
dropped  down  on  him  and  again 
opened  fire.  They  were  on  his  level, 
behind  and  on  his  sides.  Bullets 
whistled  by  him  in  streams.  The 
rapid-fire  gun  on  Fontaine's  machine 
had  jammed  and  he  was  helpless.  His 
gunner  fell  forward  on  him,  dead. 
The  trenches  were  just  ahead,  but  as 
he  was  slanting  downward  to  gain 
speed  he  had  lost  a  good  deal  of 
height,3and  was  at  only  six  hundred  feet 
when  he  crossed  the  lines,  from  which 
he  received  a  ground  fire.  The  Ger- 
mans gave  up  the  chase  and  Fontaine 
landed  with  his  dead  gunner.  His 
wings  were  so  full  of  holes  that  they 
barely  supported  the  machine  in  the  air. 
104 


FLYING      FOR      FRANCE 

The  uncertain  wait  at  Luxeuil 
finally  came  to  an  end  on  the  12th  of 
October.  The  afternoon  of  that  day 
the  British  did  not  say:  "Come  on 
Yanks,  let's  call  off  the  war  and  have 
tea,"  as  was  their  wont,  for  the  bom- 
bardment of  Oberndorf  was  on.  The 
British  and  French  machines  had  been 
prepared.  Just  before  climbing  into 
their  airplanes  the  pilots  were  given 
their  orders.  The  English  in  their 
single-seated  Sopwiths,  which  carried 
four  bombs  each,  were  the  first  to 
leave.  The  big  French  Brequets  and 
Farmans  then  soared  aloft  with  their 
tons  of  explosive  destined  for  the 
Mauser  works.  The  fighting  ma- 
chines, which  were  to  convoy  them  as 
far  as  the  Rhine,  rapidly  gained  their 
height  and  circled  above  their  charges. 
Four  of  the  battleplanes  were  from 
105 


FLYING      FOR      FRANCE 

the  American  eseadrille.  They  were 
piloted  respectively  by  Lieutenant  de 
Laage,  Lufbery,  Norman  Prince,  and 
Masson. 

The  Germans  were  taken  by  sur- 
prise and  as  a  result  few  of  their  ma- 
chines were  in  the  air.  The  bombard- 
ment fleet  was  attacked,  however,  and 
six  of  its  planes  shot  down,  some  of 
them  falling  in  flames.  Baron,  the 
famous  French  night  bombarder,  lost 
hislifeinoneoftheFarmans.  Two  Ger- 
mans were  brought  down  by  machines 
they  attacked  and  the  four  pilots  from 
the  American  eseadrille  accounted  for 
one  each.  Lieutenant  de  Laage  shot 
down  his  Boche  as  it  was  attacking  an- 
other French  machine  and  Masson  did 
likewise.  Explaining  it  afterward  he 
said:  "All  of  a  sudden  I  saw  a  Boche 
•some  in  between  me  and  a  Breguet, 
106 


FLYING      FOR      FRANCE 

I  was  following.  I  just  began  to 
shoot,  and  darned  if  he  didn't 
fall." 

As  the  fuel  capacity  of  a  Nieuport 
allows  but  little  more  than  two  hours 
in  the  air  the  avions  de  chasse  were 
forced  to  return  to  their  own  lines  to 
take  on  more  gasoline,  while  the  bom- 
bardment planes  continued  on  into 
Germany.  The  Sopwiths  arrived 
first  at  Oberndorf.  Dropping  low 
over  the  Mauser  works  they  dis- 
charged their  bombs  and  headed 
homeward.  All  arrived,  save  one, 
whose  pilot  lost  his  way  and  came  to 
earth  in  Switzerland.  When  the  big 
machines  got  to  Oberndorf  they  saw 
only  flames  and  smoke  where  once  the 
rifle  factory  stood.  They  unloaded 
their  explosives  on  the  burning  mass. 

The  Nieuports  having  refilled  their 
107 


FLYING      FOR      FRANCE 

tanks  went  up  to  clear  the  air  of  Ger- 
mans that  might  be  hovering  in  wait 
for  the  returning  raiders.  Prince 
found  one  and  promptly  shot  it  down. 
Lufbery  came  upon  three.  He  drove 
for  one,  making  it  drop  below  the 
others,  then  forcing  a  second  to  de- 
scend, attacked  the  one  remaining 
above.  The  combat  was  short  and  at 
the  end  of  it  the  German  tumbled  to 
earth.  This  made  the  fifth  enemy 
machine  which  was  officially  credited 
to  Lufbery.  When  a  pilot  has  ac- 
counted for  five  Boches  he  is  men- 
tioned by  name  in  the  official  com- 
munication, and  is  spoken  of  as  an 
"Ace,"  which  in  French  aerial  slang 
means  a  super-pilot.  Papers  are  al- 
lowed to  call  an  "ace"  by  name,  print 
his  picture  and  give  him  a  write-up. 
The  successful  aviator  becomes  a 
108 


FLYING      FOR      FRANCE 

national  hero.  When  Lufbery  worked 
into  this  category  the  French  papers 
made  him  a  head  liner.  The  Ameri- 
can "Ace,"  with  his  string  of  medals, 
then  came  in  for  the  ennuis  of  a  mati- 
nee idol.  The  choicest  bit  in  the  col- 
lection was  a  letter  from  Wallingford, 
Conn.,  his  home  town,  thanking  him 
for  putting  it  on  the  map. 

Darkness  was  coming  rapidly  on 
but  Prince  and  Lufbery  remained  in 
the  air  to  protect  the  bombardment 
fleet.  Just  at  nightfall  Lufbery  made 
for  a  small  aviation  field  near  the  lines, 
known  as  Corcieux.  Slow-moving 
machines,  with  great  planing  cap- 
acity, can  be  landed  in  the  dark,  but 
to  try  and  feel  for  the  ground  in  a 
Nieuport,  which  comes  down  at  about 
a  hundred  miles  an  hour,  is  to  court 
disaster.  Ten  minutes  after  Lufbery 
109 


FLYING      FOR      FRANCE 

landed  Prince  decided  to  make  for  the 
field.  He  spiraled  down  through  the 
night  air  and  skimmed  rapidly  over 
the  trees  bordering  the  Gorcieux  field. 
In  the  dark  he  did  not  see  a  high- 
tension  electric  cable  that  was 
stretched  just  above  the  tree  tops. 
The  landing  gear  of  his  airplane  struck 
it.  The  machine  snapped  forward 
and  hit  the  ground  on  its  nose.  It 
turned  over  and  over.  The  belt  hold- 
ing Prince  broke  and  he  was  thrown 
far  from  the  wrecked  plane.  Both  of 
his  legs  were  broken  and  he  naturally 
suffered  internal  injuries.  In  spite 
of  the  terrific  shock  and  his  intense 
pain  Prince  did  not  lose  consciousness. 
He  even  kept  his  presence  of  mind  and 
gave  orders  to  the  men  who  had  run  to 
pick  him  up.  Hearing  the  hum  of  a 
motor,  and  realizing  a  machine  was  in 
110 


FLYING      FOR      FR  AN  G  E 

the  air,  Prince  told  them  to  light 
gasoline  fires  on  the  field.  "You  don't 
want  another  fellow  to  come  down 
and  break  himself  up  the  way  I've 
done,"  he  said. 

Lufbery  went  with  Prince  to  the 
hospital  in  Gerardmer.  As  the  am- 
bulance rolled  along  Prince  sang  to 
keep  up  his  spirits.  He  spoke  of  get- 
ting well  soon  and  returning  to  ser- 
vice. It  was  like  Norman.  He  was 
always  energetic  about  his  flying. 
Even  when  he  passed  through  the 
harrowing  experience  of  having  a 
wing  shattered,  the  first  thing  he  did 
on  landing  was  to  busy  himself  about 
getting  another  fitted  in  place  and 
the  next  morning  he  was  in  the  air 
again. 

No  one  thought  that  Prince  was 
mortally  injured  but  the  next  day  he 
111 


FLYING      FOR      FRANCE 


went  into  a  coma.  A  blood  clot  had 
formed  on  his  brain.  Captain  Haff  in 
command  of  the  aviation  groups  of 
Luxeuil,  accompanied  by  our  officers, 
hastened  to  Gerardmer.  Prince  lying 
unconscious  on  his  bed,  was  named  a 
second  lieutenant  and  decorated  with 
the  Legion  of  Honor.  He  already 
held  the  Medaille  Militaire  and  Croix 
de  Guerre.  Norman  Prince  died  on 
the  15th  of  October.  He  was  brought 
back  to  Luxeuil  and  given  a  funeral 
similar  to  Rockwell's.  It  was  hard  to 
realize  that  poor  old  Norman  had 
gone.  He  was  the  founder  of  the 
American  escadrille  and  every  one  in 
it  had  come  to  rely  on  him.  He  never 
let  his  own  spirits  drop,  and  was  al- 
ways on  hand  with  encouragement  for 
the  others.  I  do  not  think  Prince 
minded  going.  He  wanted  to  do  his 
112 


FLYING      FOR      FRANCE 

part  before  being  killed,  and  he  had 
more  than  done  it.  He  had,  day  after 
day,  freed  the  line  of  Germans,  mak- 
ing it  impossible  for  them  to  do  their 
work,  and  three  of  them  he  had  shot 
to  earth. 

Two  days  after  Prince's  death  the 
escadrille  received  orders  to  leave  for 
the  Somme.  The  night  before  the  de- 
parture the  British  gave  the  American 
pilots  a  farewell  banquet  and  toasted 
them  as  their  "Guardian  Angels." 
They  keenly  appreciated  the  fact  that 
four  men  from  the  American  escadrille 
had  brought  down  four  Germans,  and 
had  cleared  the  way  for  their  squad- 
ron returning  from  Oberndorf .  When 
the  train  pulled  out  the  next  day  the 
station  platform  was  packed  by  khaki- 
clad  pilots  waving  good-bye  to  their 
friends  the  "Yanks." 
113 


FLYING      FOR      FRANCE 

The  escadrille  passed  through  Paris 
on  its  way  to  the  Somme  front.  The 
few  members  who  had  machines  flew 
from  Luxeuil  to  their  new  post.  At 
Paris  the  pilots  were  reenforced  by 
three  other  American  boys  who  had 
completed  their  training.  They  were : 
Fred  Prince,  who  ten  months  before 
had  come  over  from  Boston  to  serve 
in  aviation  with  his  brother  Norman ; 
Willis  Haviland,  of  Chicago,  who  left 
the  American  Ambulance  for  the  life 
of  a  birdman,  and  Bob  Soubrian,  of 
New  York,  who  had  been  transferred 
from  the  Foreign  Legion  to  the  flying 
corps  after  being  wounded  in  the 
Champagne  offensive. 

Before  its  arrival  in  the  Somme  the 

escadrille  had  always  been  quartered 

in  towns  and  the  life  of  the  pilots  was 

all  that  could  be  desired  in  the  way  of 

114 


FLYING      FOR      FRANCE 

comforts.  We  had,  as  a  result,  come 
to  believe  that  we  would  wage  only  a 
de  luxe  war,  and  were  unprepared  for 
any  other  sort  of  campaign.  The  in- 
troduction to  the  Somme  was  a  rude 
awakening.  Instead  of  being  quar- 
tered in  a  villa  or  hotel,  the  pilots  were 
directed  to  a  portable  barracks  newly 
erected  in  a  sea  of  mud. 

It  was  set  in  a  cluster  of  similar 
barns  nine  miles  from  the  near- 
est town.  A  sieve  was  a  water- 
tight compartment  in  comparison 
with  that  elongated  shed.  The  damp 
cold  penetrated  through  every  crack, 
chilling  one  to  the  bone.  There  were 
no  blankets  and  until  they  were  pro- 
cured the  pilots  had  to  curl  up  in  their 
flying  clothes.  There  were  no  arrange- 
ments for  cooking  and  the  Americans 
depended  on  the  other  escadrilles  for 
115 


FLYING      FOR      FRANCE 

food.  Eight  fighting  units  were  lo- 
cated at  the  same  field  and  our  ever- 
generous  French  comrades  saw  to  it 
that  no  one  went  hungry.  The  thick 
mist,  for  which  the  Somme  is  famous, 
hung  like  a  pall  over  the  birdmen's 
nest  dampening  both  the  clothes  and 
spirits  of  the  men. 

Something  had  to  be  done,  so  Thaw 
and  Masson,  who  is  our  Chef  de  Popote 
(President  of  the  Mess)  obtained  per- 
mission to  go  to  Paris  in  one  of  our 
light  trucks.  They  returned  with 
cooking  utensils,  a  stove,  and  other 
necessary  things.  All  hands  set  to 
work  and  as  a  result  life  was  made 
bearable.  In  fact  I  was  surprised  to 
find  the  quarters  as  good  as  they  were 
when  I  rejoined  the  escadrille  a  couple 
of  weeks  after  its  arrival  in  the 
Somme.  Outside  of  the  cold,  mud, 
116 


FLYING      FOR      FRANCE 

and  dampness  it  wasn't  so  bad.  The 
barracks  had  been  partitioned  off  into 
little  rooms  leaving  a  large  space  for  a 
dining  hall.  The  stove  is  set  up  there 
and  all  animate  life  from  the  lion  cub 
to  the  pilots  centre  around  its  warm- 
ing glow. 

The  eight  escadrilles  of  fighting 
machines  form  a  rather  interesting 
colony.  The  large  canvas  hangars 
are  surrounded  by  the  house  tents  of 
their  respective  escadrilles;  wooden 
barracks  for  the  men  and  pilots  are  in 
close  proximity,  and  sandwiched  in 
between  the  encampments  of  the 
various  units  are  the  tents  where  the 
commanding  officers  hold  forth.  In 
addition  there  is  a  bath  house  where 
one  may  go  and  freeze  while  a  tiny 
stream  of  hot  water  trickles  down 
one's  shivering  form.  Another  shack 
117 


FLYING      FOR      FRANCE 

houses  the  power  plant  which  gen- 
erates electric  light  for  the  tents  and 
barracks,  and  in  one  very  popular 
canvas  is  located  the  community  bar, 
the  profits  from  which  go  to  the  Red 
Cross. 

We  had  never  before  been  grouped 
with  as  many  other  fighting  esca- 
drilles,  nor  at  a  field  so  near  the  front. 
We  sensed  the  war  to  better  advan- 
tage than  at  Luxeuil  or  Bar-le-Duc. 
When  there  is  activity  on  the  lines  the 
rumble  of  heavy  artillery  reaches  us 
in  a  heavy  volume  of  sound.  From 
the  field  one  can  see  the  line  of  sau- 
sage-shaped observation  balloons, 
which  delineate  the  front,  and  beyond 
them  the  high-flying  airplanes,  dart- 
ing like  swallows  in  the  shrapnel  puffs 
of  anti-air-craft  fire.  The  roar  of 
motors  that  are  being  tested,  is  punc- 
118 


FLYING      FOR      FRANCE 

tuated  by  the  staccato  barking  of 
machine  guns,  and  at  intervals  the 
hollow  whistling  sound  of  a  fast  plane 
diving  to  earth  is  added  to  this 
symphony  of  war  notes. 


119 


CHAPTER  III 

PERSONAL    LETTERS    FROM    SERGEANT 
McGONNELL — AT   THE   FRONT 

We're  still  waiting  for  our  machines. 
In  the  meantime  the  Boches  sail  gaily 
over  and  drop  bombs.  One  of  our 
drivers  has  been  killed  and  five  wound- 
ed so  far  but  we'll  put  a  stop  to  it  soon. 
The  machines  have  left  and  are  due 
to-day. 

You  ask  me  what  my  work  will  be 
and  how  my  machine  is  armed.  First 
of  all  I  mount  an  avion  de  chasse  and 
am  supposed  to  shoot  down  Boches 
or  keep  them  away  from  over  our 
lines.  I  do  not  do  observation,  or 
regulating  of  artillery  fire.  These  are 
120 


FLYING      FOR      FRANCE 

handled  by  escadrilles  equipped  with 
bigger  machines.  I  mount  at  day- 
break over  the  lines;  stay  at  from 
11,000  to  15,000  feet  and  wait  for  the 
sight  of  an  enemy  plane.  It  may  be 
a  bombardment  machine,  a  regulator 
of  fire,  an  observer,  or  an  avion  de 
chasse  looking  for  me.  Whatever  she 
is  I  make  for  her  and  manoeuvre  for 
position.  All  the  machines  carry  dif- 
ferent gun  positions  and  one  seeks 
the  blind  side.  Having  obtained  the 
proper  position  one  turns  down  or  up, 
whichever  the  case  may  be,  and,  when 
within  fifty  yards,  opens  up  with  the 
machine  gun.  That  is  on  the  upper 
plane  and  it  is  sighted  by  a  series  of 
holes  and  cross  webs.  As  one  is 
passing  at  a  terrific  rate  there  is  not 
time  for  many  shots,  so,  unless 
wounded  or  one's  machine  is  injured 
121 


FLYING     FOR     FRANCE 

by  the  first  try — for  the  enemy  plane 
shoots,  too — one  tries  it  again  and 
again  until  there's  nothing  doing  or 
the  other  fellow  is  dropped.  Apart 
from  work  over  the  lines,  which  is 
comparatively  calm,  there  is  the  job 
of  convoying  bombardment  machines. 
That  is  the  rotten  task.  The  captain 
has  called  on  us  to  act  as  guards  on 
the  next  trip.  You  see  we  are  like 
torpedo  boats  of  the  air  with  our  swift 
machines. 

We  have  the  honour  of  being  at- 
tached to  a  bombardment  squadron 
that  is  the  most  famous  in  the  French 
Army.  The  captain  of  the  unit  once 
lost  his  whole  escadrille,  and  on  the  last 
trip  eight  lost  their  lives.  It  was  a 
wonderful  fight.  The  squadron  was 
attacked  by  thirty-three  Boches.  Two 
French  planes  crashed  to  earth — then 
122 


FLYING      FOR     FRANCE 

two  German ;  another  German  was  set 
on  fire  and  streaked  down,  followed  by 
a  streaming  column  of  smoke.  An- 
other Frenchman  fell;  another  Ger- 
man; and  then  a  French  lieutenant, 
mortally  wounded  and  realizing  that 
he  was  dying,  plunged  his  airplane 
into  a  German  below  him  and  both 
fell  to  earth  like  stones. 

The  tours  of  Alsace  and  the  Vosges 
that  we  have  made,  to  look  over 
possible  landing  places,  were  wonder- 
ful. I've  never  seen  such  ravishing 
sights,  and  in  regarding  the  beauty  of 
the  country  I  have  missed  noting  the 
landing  places.  The  valleys  are  mar- 
vellous. On  each  side  the  mountain 
slopes  are  a  solid  mass  of  giant  pines 
and  down  these  avenues  of  green 
tumble  myriads  of  glittering  cascades 
which  form  into  sparkling  streams 
123 


FLYING      FOR      FRANCE 

beneath.  It  is  a  pleasant  feeling  to 
go  into  Alsace  and  realize  that  one  is 
touring  over  country  we  have  taken 
from  the  Germans.  It's  a  treat  to  go 
by  auto  that  way.  In  the  air,  you 
know,  one  feels  detached  from  all 
below.  It's  a  different  world,  that 
has  no  particular  meaning,  and  be- 
sides, it  all  looks  flat  and  of  a  weary 
pattern. 

THE    FIRST   TRIP 

Well,  I've  made  my  first  trip  over 
the  lines  and  proved  a  few  things  to 
myself.  First,  I  can  stand  high  alti- 
tudes. I  had  never  been  higher  than 
7,000  feet  before,  nor  had  I  flown 
more  than  an  hour.  On  my  trip 
to  Germany  I  went  to  14,000  feet  and 
was  in  the  air  for  two  hours.  I  wore 
the  fur  head-to-foot  combination  they 
124 


FLYING      FOR      FRANCE 

give  one  and  paper  gloves  under  the 
fur  ones  you  sent  me.  I  was  not  cold. 
In  a  way  it  seemed  amusing  to  be 
going  out  knowing  as  little  as  I  do. 
My  mitrailleuse  had  been  mounted 
the  night  before.  I  had  never  fired  it, 
nor  did  I  know  the  country  at  all  even 
though  I'd  motored  along  our  lines. 
I  followed  the  others  or  I  surely  should 
have  been  lost.  I  shall  have  to  make 
special  trips  to  study  the  land  and 
be  able  to  make  it  out  from  my  map 
which  I  carry  on  board.  For  one 
thing  the  weather  was  hazy  and 
clouds  obscured  the  view. 

We  left  en  escadrille,  at  30-second 
intervals,  at  6:30  a.m.  I'd  been  on 
guard  since  three,  waiting  for  an 
enemy  plane.  I  climbed  to  3,500 
feet  in  four  minutes  and  so  started  off 
higher  than  the  rest.  I  lost  them 
125 


FLYING      FOR      FRANCE 

immediately  but  took  a  compass  course 
in  the  direction  we  were  headed. 
Clouds  were  below  me  and  I  could 
see  the  earth  only  in  spots.  Ahead 
was  a  great  barrier  of  clouds  and  fog. 
It  seemed  like  a  limitless  ocean.  To 
the  south  the  Alps  jutted  up  through 
the  clouds  and  glistened  like  icebergs 
in  the  morning  sun.  I  began  to  feel 
completely  lost.  I  was  at  7,000  feet 
and  that  was  all  I  knew.  Suddenly 
I  saw  a  little  black  speck  pop  out  of  a 
cloud  to  my  left — then  two  others. 
They  were  our  machines  and  from 
then  on  I  never  let  them  get  out  of 
my  sight.  I  went  to  14,000  in  order 
to  be  able  to  keep  them  well  in  view 
below  me.  We  went  over  Belfort 
which  I  recognized,  and,  turning,  went 
toward  the  lines.  The  clouds  had 
dispersed  by  this  time.  Alsace  was 
126 


FLYING      FOR      FRANCE 

below  us  and  in  the  distance  I  could 
see  the  straight  course  of  the  Rhine. 
It  looked  very  small.  I  looked  down 
and  saw  the  trenches  and  when  I  next 
looked  for  our  machines  I  saw  clusters 
of  smoke  puffs.  We  were  being  fired 
at.  One  machine  just  under  me 
seemed  to  be  in  the  centre  of  a  lot 
of  shrapnel.  The  puffs  were  white,  or 
black,  or  green,  depending  on  the  size 
of  the  shell  used.  It  struck  me  as 
more  amusing  than  anything  else  to 
watch  the  explosions  and  smoke.  I 
thought  of  what  a  lot  of  money  we 
were  making  the  Germans  spend. 
It  is  not  often  that  they  hit.  The  day 
before  one  of  our  machines  had  a  part 
of  the  tail  shot  away  and  the  pro- 
peller nicked,  but  that's  just  bum 
luck.  Two  shells  went  off  just  at 
my  height  and  in  a  way  that  led  me 
127 


FLYING     FOR    FRANCE 

to  think  that  the  third  one  would 
get  me;  but  it  didn't.  It's  hard  even 
for  the  aviator  to  tell  how  far  off  they 
are.  We  went  over  Mulhouse  and 
to  the  north.  Then  we  sailed  south 
and  turned  over  the  lines  on  the 
way  home.  I  was  very  tired  after 
the  flight  but  it  was  because  I  was  not 
used  to  it  and  it  was  a  strain  on  me 
keeping  a  look-out  for  the  others. 

AT   VERDUN 

To-day  the  army  moving  picture 
outfit  took  pictures  of  us.  We  had 
a  big  show.  Thirty  bombardment 
planes  went  off  like  clock-work  and 
we  followed.  We  circled  and  swooped 
down  by  the  camera.  We  were  taken 
in  groups,  then  individually,  in  flying 
togs,  and  God  knows  what-all.  They 
will  be  shown  in  the  States. 
128 


FLYING     FOR      FRANCE 

If  you  happen  to  see  them  you  will 
recognize  my  machine  by  the  Mag, 
painted  on  the  side. 

Seems  quite  an  important  thing  to 
have  one's  own  airplane  with  two 
mechanics  to  take  care  of  it,  to  help 
one  dress  for  flights,  and  to  obey 
orders.  A  pilot  of  no  matter  what 
grade  is  like  an  officer  in  any  other  arm. 

We  didn't  see  any  Boche  planes  on 
our  trip.  We  were  too  many.  The 
only  way  to  do  is  to  sneak  up  on  them. 

I  do  not  get  a  chance  to  see  much 
of  the  biggest  battle  in  the  world 
which  is  being  fought  here,  for  I'm 
on  a  fighting  machine  and  the  sky 
is  my  province.  We  fly  so  high  that 
ground  details  are  lacking.  Where 
the  battle  has  raged  there  is  a  broad, 
browned  band.  It  is  a  great  strip  of 
murdered  Nature.  Trees,  houses,  and 
129 


FLYING      FOR      FRANCE 

even  roads  have  been  blasted  com- 
pletely away.  The  shell  holes  are  so 
numerous  that  they  blend  into  one 
another  and  cannot  be  separately  seen. 
It  looks  as  if  shells  fell  by  the  thousand 
every  second.  There  are  spurts  of 
smoke  at  nearly  every  foot  of  the 
brown  areas  and  a  thick  pall  of  mist 
covers  it  all.  There  are  but  holes 
where  the  trenches  ran,  and  when 
one  thinks  of  the  poor  devils  crouch- 
ing in  their  inadequate  shelters  under 
such  a  hurricane  of  flying  metal,  it 
increases  one's  respect  for  the  staying 
powers  of  modern  man.  It's  terrible 
to  watch,  and  I  feel  sad  every  time  I 
look  down.  The  only  shooting  we 
hear  is  the  tut-tut-tut  of  our  own  or 
enemy  plane's  machine  guns  when 
fighting  is  at  close  quarters.  The 
Germans  shoot  explosive  bullets  from 
130 


FLYING      FOR      FRANCE 

theirs.  I  must  admit  that  they  have 
an  excellent  air  fleet  even  if  they  do 
not  fight  decently. 

I'm  a  sergeant  now — sergent  in 
French — and  I  get  about  two  francs 
more  a  day  and  wear  a  gold  band  on 
my  cap,  which  makes  old  territorials 
think  I'm  an  officer  and  occasions 
salutes  which  are  some  bother. 

A   SORTIE 

We  made  a  foolish  sortie  this  morn 
ing.  Only  five  of  us  went,  the  others 
remaining  in  bed  thinking  the  weather 
was  too  bad.  It  was.  When  at 
only  3,000  feet  we  hit  a  solid  layer 
of  clouds,  and  when  we  had  passed 
through,  we  couldn't  see  anything 
but  a  shimmering  field  of  white. 
Above  were  the  bright  sun  and  the 
blue  sky,  but  how  we  were  in  re- 
131 


FLYING      FOR     FRANCE 

gard  to  the  earth  no  one  knew. 
Fortunately  the  clouds  had  a  big 
hole  in  them  at  one  point  and  the 
whole  mass  was  moving  toward  the 
lines.  By  circling,  climbing,  and 
dropping  we  stayed  above  the  hole, 
and,  when  over  the  trenches,  worked 
into  it,  ready  to  fall  on  the  Boches. 
It's  a  stunt  they  use,  too.  We  finally 
found  ourselves  20  kilometres  in  the 
German  lines.  In  coming  back  I 
steered  by  compass  and  then  when  I 
thought  I  was  near  the  field  I  dived 
and  found  myself  not  so  far  off,  hav- 
ing the  field  in  view.  In  the  clouds 
it  shakes  terribly  and  one  feels  as  if 
one  were  in  a  canoe  on  a  rough  sea. 

VICTOR   CHAPMAN 

I  was  mighty  sorry  to  see  old  Victor 
Chapman  go.     He  was  one  of    the 
132 


FLYING      FOR      FRANCE 

finest  men  I've  ever  known.  He  was 
too  brave  if  anything.  He  was  ex- 
ceptionally well  educated,  had  a  fine 
brain,  and  a  heart  as  big  as  a  house. 
Why,  on  the  day  of  his  fatal  trip,  he 
had  put  oranges  in  his  machine  to  take 
to  Balsley  who  was  lying  wounded 
with  an  explosive  bullet.  He  was 
going  to  land  near  the  hospital  after 
the  sortie. 

Received  letter  inclosing  note  from 
Chapman's  father.  I'm  glad  you 
wrote  him.  I  feel  sure  that  some  of 
my  letters  never  reach  you.  I  never 
let  more  than  a  week  go  by  without 
writing.  Maybe  I  do  not  get  all 
yours,  either. 

A    SMASH-UP 

Weather  has  been  fine  and  we've 
been  doing  a  lot  of  work.     Our  Lieu- 
133 


FLYING     FOR     FRANCE 

tenant  de  Laage  de  Mieux,  brought 
down  a  Boche.  I  had  another  beau- 
tiful smash-up.  Prince  and  I  had 
stayed  too  long  over  the  lines.  Im- 
portant day  as  an  attack  was  going 
on.  It  was  getting  dark  and  we 
could  see  the  tiny  balls  of  fire  the 
infantry  light  to  show  the  low-flying 
observation  machines  their  new  posi- 
tions. On  my  return,  when  I  was  over 
another  aviation  field,  my  motor 
broke.  I  made  for  field.  In  the  dark- 
ness I  couldn't  judge  my  distance 
well,  and  went  too  far.  At  the  edge  of 
the  field  there  were  trees,  and  beyond, 
a  deep  cut  where  a  road  ran.  I  was 
skimming  ground  at  a  hundred  miles 
an  hour  and  heading  for  the  trees.  I 
saw  soldiers  running  to  be  in  at  the  fin- 
ish and  I  thought  to  myself  that 
James's  hash  was  cooked,  but  I  went 
134 


FLYING      FOR      FRANCE 

between  two  trees  and  ended  up  head 
on  against  the  opposite  bank  of  the 
road.  My  motor  took  the  shock  and 
my  belt  held  me.  As  my  tail  went  up 
it  was  cut  in  two  by  some  very  low 
'phone  wires.  I  wasn't  even  bruised. 
Took  dinner  with  the  officers  there  who 
gave  me  a  car  to  go  home  in  afterward. 

FIGHTING   A   BOGHE 

To-day  I  shared  another  chap's 
machine  (Hill  of  Peekskill),  and  got 
it  shot  up  for  him.  De  Laage  (our 
lieutenant)  and  I  made  a  sortie  at 
noon.  When  over  the  German  lines, 
near  Cote  304,  I  saw  two  Boches  under 
me.  I  picked  out  the  rear  chap  and 
dived.  Fired  a  few  shots  and  then 
tried  to  get  under  his  tail  and  hit  him 
from  there.  I  missed,  and  bobbed 
up  alongside  of  him.  Fine  for  the 
135 


FLYING      FOR      FRANCE 

Boche,  but  rotten  for  me !  I  could  see 
his  gunner  working  the  mitrailleuse 
for  fair,  and  felt  his  bullets  darn  close. 
I  dived,  for  I  could  not  shoot  from 
that  position,  and  beat  it.  He  kept 
plunking  away  and  altogether  put 
seven  holes  in  my  machine.  One  was 
only  ten  inches  in  from  me.  De 
Laage  was  too  far  off  to  get  to  the 
Boche  and  ruin  him  while  I  was 
amusing  him. 

Yesterday  I  motored  up  to  an  avia- 
tion camp  to  see  a  Boche  machine 
that  had  been  forced  to  land  and  was 
captured.  On  the  way  up  I  passed 
a  cantonment  of  Senegalese.  About 
twenty  of  'em  jumped  up  from  the 
bench  they  were  sitting  on  and  gave 
me  the  hell  of  a  salute.  Thought  I 
was  a  general  because  I  was  riding  in 
a  car,  I  guess.  They're  the  blackest 
136 


FLYING      FOR     FRANCE 

niggers  you  ever  saw.  Good-looking 
soldiers.  Can't  stand  shelling  but 
they're  good  on  the  cold  steel  end  of 
the  game.  The  Boche  machine  was  a 
beauty.  Its  motor  is  excellent  and 
she  carries  a  machine  gun  aft  and  one 
forward.  Same  kind  of  machine  I 
attacked  to-day.  The  German  pilots 
must  be  mighty  cold-footed,  for  if 
the  Frenchmen  had  airplanes  like 
that  they  surely  would  raise  the  devil 
with  the  Boches. 

As  it  is  the  Boches  keep  well  within 
their  lines,  save  occasionally,  and  we 
have  to  go  over  and  fight  them  there. 

KIFFIN   ROCKWELL 

Poor  Kiffen  Rockwell  has  been  killed. 
He    was    known    and    admired    far 
and  wide,  and  he  was  accorded  ex- 
traordinary honours.     Fifty  English 
137 


FLYING      FOR      FRANCE 

pilots  and  eight  hundred  aviation  men 
from  the  British  unit  in  the  Vosges 
marched  at  his  funeral.  There  was  a 
regiment  of  Territorials  and  a  battalion 
of  Colonial  troops  in  addition  to  the 
hundreds  of  French  pilots  and  aviation 
men.  Captain  Thenault  of  the  Amer- 
ican Escadrille  delivered  an  exception- 
ally eulogistic  funeral  oration.  He 
spoke  at  length  of  Rockwell's  ideals 
and  his  magnificent  work.  He  told  of 
his  combats.  "When  Rockwell  was 
on  the  lines,"  he  said,  "no  German 
passed,  but  on  the  contrary  was  forced 
to  seek  a  refuge  on  the  ground." 

Rockwell  made  the  esprit  of  the 
escadrille,  and  the  Captain  voiced  the 
sentiments  of  us  all  when,  in  announc- 
ing his  death,  he  said:  "The  best  and 
bravest  of  us  all  is  no  more." 

How  does  the  war  look  to  you — as 
138 


FLYING      FOE      FRANCE 

regards  duration?  We  are  figuring 
on  about  ten  more  months,  but  then 
it  may  be  ten  more  years.  Of  late 
things  are  much  brighter  and  one  can 
feel  a  certain  elation  in  the  air.  Vic- 
tory, before,  was  a  sort  of  academic 
certainty;  now,  it's  felt. 


139 


CHAPTER  IV 

HOW  FRANCE   TRAINS   PILOT   AVIATORS 

France  now  has  thousands  of  men 
training  to  become  military  aviators, 
and  the  flying  schools,  of  which  there 
is  a  very  great  number,  are  turning 
out  pilots  at  an  astounding  rate. 

The  process  of  training  a  man  to  be 
a  pilot  aviator  naturally  varies  in 
accordance  with  the  type  of  machine 
on  which  he  takes  his  first  instruction, 
and  so  the  methods  of  the  various 
schools  depend  on  the  apparatus  upon 
which  they  teach  an  eleve  pilote — as 
an  embryonic  aviator  is  called — to  fly. 

In  the  case  of  the  larger  biplanes,  a 
student  goes  up  in  a  dual-control 
140 


FLYING     FOR     FRANCE 

airplane,  accompanied  by  an  old 
pilot,  who,  after  first  taking  him  on 
many  short  trips,  then  allows  him 
part,  and  later  full,  control,  and  who 
immediately  corrects  any  false  moves 
made  by  him.  After  that,  short, 
straight,  line  flights  are  made  alone  in 
a  smaller-powered  machine  by  the 
student,  and,  following  that,  the  train- 
ing goes  on  by  degrees  to  the  point 
where  a  certain  mastery  of  the  ap- 
paratus is  attained.  Then  follows 
the  prescribed  "stunts"  and  voyages 
necessary  to  obtain  the  military 
brevet. 

TRAINING  FOR  PURSUIT  AIRPLANES 

The  method  of  training  a  pilot  for  a 

small,  fast  avion  de  chasse,  as  a  fighting 

airplane  is  termed,  is  quite  different, 

and  as  it  is  the  most  thorough  and  in- 

141 


FLYING      FOR      FRANCE 

teresting  I  will  take  that  course  up  in 
greater  detail. 

The  man  who  trains  for  one  of  these 
machines  never  has  the  advantage  of 
going  first  into  the  air  in  a  double-con- 
trol airplane.  He  is  alone  when  he 
first  leaves  the  earth,  and  so  the  train- 
ing preparatory  to  that  stage  is  very 
carefully  planned  to  teach  a  man  the 
habit  of  control  in  such  a  way  that  all 
the  essential  movements  will  come 
naturally  when  he  first  finds  himself 
face  to  face  with  the  new  problems  the 
air  has  set  for  him.  In  this  prepara- 
tory training  a  great  deal  of  weeding 
out  is  effected,  for  a  man's  aptitude 
for  the  work  shows  up,  and  unless  he  is 
by  nature  especially  well  fitted  he  is 
transferred  to  the  division  which 
teaches  one  to  fly  the  larger  and  safer 
machines. 

142 


FLYING      FOR      FRANCE 

First  of  all,  the  student  is  put  on 
what  is  called  a  roller.  It  is  a  low- 
powered  machine  with  very  small 
wings.  It  is  strongly  built  to  stand 
the  rough  wear  it  gets,  and  no  matter 
how  much  one  might  try  it  could 
not  leave  the  ground.  The  ap- 
paratus is  jokingly  and  universally 
known  as  a  Penguin,  both  because  of 
its  humorous  resemblance  to  the 
quaint  arctic  birds  and  its  inability  in 
common  with  them  to  do  any  flying. 
A  student  makes  a  few  trips  up  and 
down  the  field  in  a  double-control 
Penguin,  and  learns  how  to  steer  with 
his  feet.  Then  he  gets  into  a  single- 
seated  one  and,  while  the  rapidly 
whirling  propeller  is  pulling  him  along, 
tries  to  keep  the  Penguin  in  a  straight 
line.  The  slightest  mistake  or  de- 
layed movement  will  send  the  machine 
143 


FLYING      FOR    FRANCE 

skidding  off  to  the  right  or  left,  and 
sometimes,  if  the  motor  is  not  stopped 
in  time,  over  on  its  side  or  back. 
Something  is  always  being  broken  on  a 
Penguin,  and  so  a  reserve  flock  is  kept 
at  the  side  of  the  field  in  order  that  no 
time  may  be  lost. 

After  one  is  able  to  keep  a  fairly 
straight  line,  he  is  put  on  a  Penguin 
that  moves  at  a  faster  rate,  and  after 
being  able  to  handle  it  successfully 
passes  to  a  very  speedy  one,  known  as 
the  "rapid."  Here  one  learns  to  keep 
the  tail  of  the  machine  at  a  proper 
angle  by  means  of  the  elevating  lever, 
and  to  make  a  perfectly  straight  line. 
When  this  has  been  accomplished  and 
the  monitor  is  thoroughly  convinced 
that  the  student  is  absolutely  certain 
of  making  no  mistakes  in  guiding  with 
his  feet,  the  young  aviator  is  passed 
144 


FLYING      FOR     FRANCE 

on  to  the  class  which  teaches  him  how 
to  leave  the  ground.  As  one  passes 
from  one  machine  to  another  one 
finds  that  the  foot  movements  must 
be  made  smaller  and  smaller.  The  in- 
creased speed  makes  the  machine 
more  and  more  responsive  to  the 
rudder,  and  as  a  result  the  foot  move- 
ments become  so  gentle  when  one  gets 
into  the  air  that  they  must  come  in- 
stinctively. 

FIRST   FLIGHTS   ALONE 

The  class  where  one  will  leave  the 
ground  has  now  been  reached,  and  an 
outfit  of  leather  clothes  and  casque 
is  given  to  the  would-be  pilot.  The 
machines  used  at  this  stage  are  low- 
powered  monoplanes  of  the  Bleriot 
type,  which,  though  being  capable  of 
leaving  the  ground,  cannot  rise  more 
145 


FLYING       FOR     FRANCE 

than  a  few  feet.  They  do  not  run 
when  the  wind  is  blowing  or  when 
there  are  any  movements  of  air  from 
the  ground,  for  though  a  great  deal  of 
balancing  is  done  by  correcting  with 
the  rudder,  the  student  knows  nothing 
of  maintaining  the  lateral  stability, 
and  if  caught  in  the  air  by  a  bad 
movement  would  be  apt  to  sustain  a 
severe  accident.  He  has  now  only  to 
learn  how  to  take  the  machine  off  the 
ground  and  hold  it  at  a  low  line  of 
flight  for  a  few  moments. 

For  the  first  time  one  is  strapped 
into  the  seat  of  the  machine,  and  this 
continues  to  be  the  case  from  this 
point  on.  The  motor  is  started,  and 
one  begins  to  roll  swiftly  along  the 
ground.  The  tail  is  brought  to  an 
angle  slightly  above  a  straight  line. 
Then  one  sits  tight  and  waits.  Sud- 
146 


FLYING     FOR     FRANCE 

denly  the  motion  seems  softer,  the 
motor  does  not  roar  so  loudly,  and  the 
ground  is  slipping  away.  The  class 
standing  at  the  end  of  the  line  looks 
far  below;  the  individuals  are  very 
small,  but  though  you  imagine  you  are 
going  too  high,  you  must  not  push 
to  go  down  more  than  the  smallest 
fraction,  or  the  machine  will  dive  and 
smash.  The  small  push  has  brought 
you  down  with  a  bump  from  a  seem- 
ingly great  height.  In  reality  you 
have  been  but  three  feet  off  the 
ground.  Little  by  little  the  student 
becomes  accustomed  to  leaving  the 
ground,  for  these  short  hop-skip-and- 
jump  flights,  and  has  learned  how  to 
steer  in  the  air. 

If  he  has  no  bad  smash-ups  he  is 
passed  on  to  a  class  where  he  rises 
higher,  and  is  taught  the  rudiments  of 
147 


FLYING     FOR     FRANCE 

landing.  If,  after  a  few  days,  that  act 
is  reasonably  performed  and  the 
young  pilot  does  not  land  too  hard,  he 
is  passed  to  the  class  where  he  goes 
about  sixty  feet  high,  maintains  his 
line  of  flight  for  five  or  six  minutes  and 
learns  to  make  a  good  landing  from 
that  height.  He  must  by  this  time  be 
able  to  keep  his  machine  on  the  line 
of  flight  without  dipping  and  rising, 
and  the  landings  must  be  uniformly 
good.  The  instructor  takes  a  great 
deal  of  time  showing  the  student  the 
proper  line  of  descent,  for  the  landings 
must  be  perfect  before  he  can  pass  on. 
Now  comes  the  class  where  the  pilot 
rises  three  or  four  hundred  feet  high 
and  travels  for  more  than  two  miles  in 
a  straight  line.  Here  he  is  taught  how 
to  combat  air  movements  and  main- 
tain lateral  stability.  All  the  flying 
148 


FLYING     FOR      FRANCE 

up  to  this  point  has  been  done  in  a 
straight  line,  but  now  comes  the  class 
where  one  is  taught  to  turn.  Ma- 
chines in  this  division  are  almost  as 
high  powered  as  a  regular  flying 
machine,  and  can  easily  climb  to  two 
thousand  feet.  The  turn  is  at  first 
very  wide,  and  then,  as  the  student 
becomes  more  confident,  it  is  done 
more  quickly,  and  while  the  machine 
leans  at  an  angle  that  would  frighten 
one  if  the  training  in  turning  had  not 
been  gradual.  When  the  pilot  can 
make  reasonably  close  right  and  left 
turns,  he  is  told  to  make  figure  eights. 
After  doing  this  well  he  is  sent  to  the 
real  flying  machines. 

There  is  nothing  in  the  way  of  a 

radical  step  from  the  turns  and  figure 

eights  to  the  real  flying  machines.    It 

is  a  question  of  becoming  at  ease  in 

149 


FLYING     FOR     FRANCE 

the  better  and  faster  airplanes  tak~ 
ing  greater  altitudes,  making  little 
trips,  perfecting  landings,  and  master- 
ing all  the  movements  of  correction 
that  one  is  forced  to  make.  Finally 
one  is  taught  how  to  shut  off  and  start 
one's  motor  again  in  the  air,  and  then 
to  go  to  a  certain  height,  shut  off  the 
motor,  make  a  half-turn  while  drop- 
ping and  start  the  motor  again.  After 
this,  one  climbs  to  about  two  thou- 
sand feet  and,  shutting  off  the  motor, 
spirals  down  to  within  five  hundred 
feet  of  the  ground.  When  that  has 
been  practised  sufficiently,  a  register- 
ing altitude  meter  is  strapped  to  the 
pilot's  back  and  he  essays  the  official 
spiral,  in  which  one  must  spiral  all 
the  way  to  earth  with  the  motor  off, 
and  come  to  a  stop  within  a  few  yards 
of  a  fixed  point  on  the  aviation 
150 


FLYING     FOR      FRANCE 

grounds.  After  this,  the  student 
passes  to  the  voyage  machines,  which 
are  of  almost  twice  the  power  of  the 
maehine  used  for  the  short  trips  and 
spirals. 

TESTS  FOR  THE  MILITARY  BREVET 

There  are  three  voyages  to  make. 
Two  consist  in  going  to  designated 
towns  an  hour  or  so  distant  and  re- 
turning. The  third  voyage  is  a  tri- 
angle. A  landing  is  made  at  one 
point  and  the  other  two  points  are 
only  necessary  to  cross.  In  addition, 
there  are  two  altitudes  of  about  seven 
thousand  feet  each  that  one  has  to 
attain  either  while  on  the  voyages  or 
afterward. 

The  young  pilot  has  not,  up  to  this 
point,  had  any  experience  on  trips, 
151 


FLYING      FOR      FRANCE 

and  there  is  always  a  sense  of  adven- 
ture in  starting  out  over  unknown 
country  with  only  a  roller  map  to 
guide  one  and  the  gauges  and  controls, 
which  need  constant  attention,  to 
distract  one  from  the  reading  of  the 
chart.  Then,  too,  it  is  the  first  time 
that  the  student  has  flown  free  and 
at  a  great  height  over  the  earth,  and 
his  sense  of  exultation  at  navigating 
at  will  the  boundless  sky  causes  him 
to  imagine  he  is  a  real  pilot.  True  it 
is  that  when  the  voyages  and  altitudes 
are  over,  and  his  examinations  in 
aeronautical  sciences  passed,  the  stu- 
dent becomes  officially  a  pilote- 
aviateur,  and  he  can  wear  two  little 
gold-woven  wings  on  his  collar  to 
designate  his  capacity,  and  carry  a 
winged  propeller  emblem  on  his  arm, 
but  he  is  not  ready  for  the  difficult 
152 


FLYING     FOR      FRANCE 

work  of  the  front,  and  before  he  has 
time  to  enjoy  more  than  a  few  days' 
rest  he  is  sent  to  a  school  of  perfec- 
tionnement.  There  the  real,  serious 
and  thorough  training  begins. 

Schools  where  the  pilots  are  trained 
on  the  modern  machines — ecoles  de 
perfedionnement  as  they  are  called — 
are  usually  an  annex  to  the  centres 
where  the  soldiers  are  taught  to  fly, 
though  there  are  one  or  two  camps 
that  are  devoted  exclusively  to  giving 
advanced  instruction  to  aviators  who 
are  to  fly  the  avions  de  chasse,  or 
fighting  machines.  When  the  aviator 
enters  one  of  these  schools  he  is  a 
breveted  pilot,  and  he  is  allowed  a 
little  more  freedom  than  he  enjoyed 
during  the  time  he  was  learning  to  fly. 

He  now  takes  up  the  Morane  mono- 
plane. It  is  interesting  to  note  that 
153 


FLYING     FOR     FRANCE 

the  German  Fokker  is  practically  a 
copy  of  this  machine.  After  flying 
for  a  while  on  a  low-powered  Morane 
and  having  mastered  the  landing,  the 
pilot  is  put  on  a  new,  higher-powered 
model  of  the  same  make.  He  has  a 
good  many  hours  of  flying,  but  his 
trips  are  very  short,  for  the  whole 
idea  is  to  familiarize  one  with  the 
method  of  landing.  The  Bleriot  has 
a  landing  gear  that  is  elastic  in  action, 
and  it  is  easy  to  bring  to  earth.  The 
Nieuport  and  other  makes  of  small, 
fast  machines  for  which  the  pilot  is 
training  have  a  solid  wheel  base,  and 
good  landings  are  much  more  difficult 
to  make.  The  Morane  pilot  has  the 
same  practices  climbing  to  small  alti- 
tudes around  eight  thousand  feet  and 
picking  his  landing  from  that  height 
with  motor  off.  When  he  becomes 
154 


FLYING     FOR     FRANCE 

proficient  in  flying  the  single-  and 
double-plane  types  he  leaves  the  school 
for  another,  where  shooting  with  ma- 
chine guns  is  taught. 

This  course  in  shooting  familiarizes 
one  with  various  makes  of  machine 
guns  used  on  airplanes,  and  one 
learns  to  shoot  at  targets  from  the  air. 
After  two  or  three  weeks  the  pilot  is 
sent  to  another  school  of  combat. 

TRICK  FLYING  AND  DOING  STUNTS 

These  schools  of  combat  are  con*- 
nected  with  the  ecoles  de  perfectionne^- 
ment  with  which  the  pilot  has  finished. 
In  the  combat  school  he  learns  battle 
tactics,  how  to  fight  singly  and  in 
fleet  formation,  and  how  to  extract 
himself  from  a  too  dangerous  position. 
Trips  are  made  in  squadron  formation 
and  sham  battles  are  effected  with 
155 


FLYING     FOR     FRANCE 

other  escadrilles,  as  the  smallest  unit 
of  an  aerial  fleet  is  called.  For  the 
first  time  the  pilot  is  allowed  to  do 
fancy  flying.  He  is  taught  how  to 
loop  the  loop,  slide  on  his  wings  or 
tail,  go  into  corkscrews  and,  more 
important,  to  get  out  of  them,  and  is 
encouraged  to  try  new  stunts. 

Finally  the  pilot  is  considered  well 
enough  trained  to  be  sent  to  the  re- 
serve, where  he  waits  his  call  to  the 
front.  At  the  reserve  he  flies  to  keep 
his  hand  in,  practises  on  any  new 
make  of  machine  that  happens  to 
come  out  or  that  he  may  be  put  on  in 
place  of  the  Nieuport,  and  receives 
information  regarding  old  and  new 
makes  of  enemy  airplanes. 

At  last  the  pilot  receives  his  call 
to  the  front,  where  he  takes  his  place 
in  some  established  or  newly  formed 
156 


FLYING      FOR      FRANCE 

escadrille.  He  is  given  a  new  machine 
from  the  nearest  airplane  reserve 
centre,  and  he  then  begins  his  active 
service  in  the  war,  which,  if  he  sur- 
vives the  course,  is  the  best  school  of 
them  all. 


THE   END 


167 


